The Education Of Walter Iooss Jr.

I say, "Yes, sir, many."

And that's when I know the war is on. And I'll get the shot.

A month later, SI assigns me to shoot a cover of Tiger in Windermere, Fla. We show up, and I say, "Hey, Tiger, I'm Walter Iooss. I covered you at La Costa. Did you notice me there?"

And he goes, "Every hole."

From that point on, we were sort of friends.

Often you have only 10 minutes with a big star from the moment he walks in the door. So you always wonder, how much time do you want to spend ingratiating yourself? You have to decide how to use your time and get the best shot.

Sometimes I'll try to slow the athlete's tempo, because he's going from one thing to the next. So he walks in and I start talking really, really slowly.

With Tiger, I try to get him off-track. Once I told him I was going to show him the kind of shot we wanted, and I walked him to my laptop. But instead of showing him golf pictures, I went right to the swimsuit pictures. Marisa Miller, I think. And his eyes went big and he said, "Oh, I love her."

I knew I had him.

Being a swimsuit photographer has done more for my reputation than my pictures of athletes. I shoot swimsuit models two weeks a year; the rest of my calendar is athletes. But I walk in the locker rooms and the athletes are like, "You're that guy who shoots those pictures!" And suddenly the whole locker room is mine, because they think I have access to Brooklyn Decker and Elle Macpherson. But shooting a beautiful girl is no different from shooting a great athlete. You work with light, go with your environment.