Photographing a Living Legend

I grew up in the days before fitness gurus were everywhere you looked, in those days when fitness could be summed up in just three words…Jack…La…Lanne…

When I was growing up I start off each day watching “The Jack La Lanne Show” before heading off to school.

As a portrait photographer, there is nothing cooler than shooting your idols. I’d always wanted to photograph Jack, so rather than wait for an assignment that might never come, I decided to assign myself. I called up his office and gave it my best pitch. They warned me that Jack gets five photo shoot requests a week and the answer would probably be “no.”

Undeterred, I emailed my pitch along with a link to my portraits of athletes on my website. Five minutes later the phone rang with the words I wanted to hear, “Jack wants to know when you can come out…”

And with that, I was headed out to photograph the world’s youngest 92-year-old and his wife Elaine near their Morro Bay home.

I tell everyone that I have the greatest job in the world. This is just further proof of that…

Fitness pioneer Jack La Lanne photographed in Morro Bay, California

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