Eamonn McCabe (born 1948)
Eamonn McCabe, who died suddenly aged 74 on 2 October, was a highly gifted news/sports photographer and picture editor, long associated with The Guardian and The Observer. He was also an AP columnist in the 1990s, writing about a wide range of topics.
McCabe won numerous awards for picture editing and sports photography, though he turned away from shooting sports after witnessing the full horror of the Heysel stadium disaster in 1985. As he told The Guardian: ‘I went as a sports photographer, thrilled to be covering Juventus against Liverpool, and ended up a news photographer, as the whole thing turned into a terrifying disaster in which 39 supporters were killed… I never processed the films from the game itself. They didn’t seem to be very important.’
He came from a relatively humble north London background, his parents being a taxi driver and hotel receptionist who went on to run a hotel. He left school with a couple of O-levels and ended up as a junior at an advertising agency. The travel bug soon bit, however, and aged 20, McCabe headed off to San Francisco, then the epicentre of the hippie world. While there, he enrolled in film school, but became more interested in photography.
Unique vision
He honed his skills in the US, shooting now-historic events such as the disastrous Rolling Stones outdoor gig at Altamont, but eventually returned to the UK, where he got a job in the photo unit of Imperial College, followed by a stint in the darkroom with the London Photo Agency (LPA). McCabe then went to shoot sports events for the Sporting Pictures agency, which led to a contract with , again shooting sports. During this period, he
