On view February 4, 2017 through April 30, 2017
Known across the country as a hotbed for professional as well as amateur sports, the Tampa Bay region is blessed with dozens of extremely talented professional sports photographers, who each year capture many thousands of images for local teams and media outlets. Featuring work by eight of these photographers, Lens on Tampa Bay Sports included some of the best regional sports photographs shot over the last 14 years, from the victories of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII and the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2004 Stanley Cup Playoffs to the College Football National Championship Game played in Tampa on January 9, 2017.
From both thematic and aesthetic standpoints, many regional photographs could fit well into one or more sections of Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present. Rather than attempting to work local sports photography into a wider-ranging exhibition, however, we chose to group them together with one another, highlighting not only the beauty, drama, and emotion of sports, but also the many local contributors to the sports photography genre. Thus, for Lens on Tampa Bay Sports, the Museum invited submissions from numerous photographers, selecting 40 images to display here. Featured photographers included Scott Audette, Mike Carlson, Loren Elliott, Kim Klement, Casey Brooke Lawson, Matt May, Skip Milos, and Dirk Shadd.