Feeling is the Thing that Happens in 1000th of a Second: A Season of Cricket Photographer Patrick Eagar

by Christian Ryan

LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017

In 1975 Patrick Eagar took some photographs which were unlike any cricket photographs anyone had seen before.

It was the summer of an Ashes and a World Cup (cricket's first), a near last-gasp summer before revolution when cricket was still a sport of helmetless faces and green fields with no advertising paint on them. A clamour of rare glamour descended on England: Thommo and D.K., baby-cheeked Viv Richards, careworn David Steele, lithe supercat Clive Lloyd, the Chappell brothers, Andy Roberts, Tony Greig, Doug Walters, trails of cigarette smoke gusting in his wake. From this raw material, a thirty-one-year-old with an expired Sports Illustrated subscription and a love of long lenses found something almost magical.

Eagar's pictures reveal that "feeling is the thing that happens in 1000th of a second". So this is a cricket book about photography and what it can do - tell the future and show human beings in ways not available to our eyes. It is part detective story, (and reconstruction of one of cricket's greatest summers), part biography, part wild-roaming conversation, part essay on the power of the image, myth and reality. It shows Christian Ryan as one of the most elegant and perceptive writers on sport today.

With seventy black-and-white and colour photographs by Patrick Eagar and other seminal photographers, it is is essential reading (and looking) for ardent fans and will exhilarate those who know nothing about cricket.

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 7, 2017

Reviews

[Raoul Slater · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book, but infinitesimally niche. Perfect for the literary, Russian mirror-lens owning fan of 1970's cricket and Joel Meyerowitz. That's me, and no-one else in the world. I can't believe Ryan found a publisher for a book whose target audience is one person.
The writing can be overblown, the bows drawn are often long, and there is no narrative drive to speak of, but this may well be my best book of the 1970's AND the 2020's. 6 stars.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply wonderful book on the art of cricket photography as represented by Patrick Eagar cache of photos taken in 1975. Happily wonders off into many areas other than cricket. Eagar comes across as a modest genius.

[Richard Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've loved Eagar's cricket photography since I was 17. To get a book talking with him about his photos, driven by a superb narrative style, is a dream. This is a fantastic book.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book about the career of Patrick Eagar, illustrated by some of his best photographs.