John Dominis, a Life magazine photographer who was known for capturing celebrities, wild animals and presidents at their unguarded best, and who was caught off guard himself while taking his most famous picture — of two American medal winners raising black-gloved fists at the 1968 Olympics — died Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.
The cause was a heart ailment, said his daughter, Dori Dominis Beer.
Dominis was a star among a stable of star photographers at Life, the nation's most popular picture magazine, from 1950 until it ended weekly publication in 1972.
Ingratiating, self-effacing and ruggedly handsome, he was often assigned to photograph people who preferred not to be photographed.
He spent a month in 1963 with actor Steve McQueen (nearly feral in his aversion to publicity), who was not yet the superstar he became. And he persuaded Frank Sinatra to indulge him for three months in 1965 while he went inside his prickly circle of friends, family, drivers and body men to photograph his life.
It was not charm, though, but the reflexes of a professional photographer that helped Dominis produce his most enduring image.
On Oct. 16, 1968, when Tommie Smith and John Carlos ascended the Olympic podium in Mexico City to receive medals for finishing first (Smith) and third (Carlos) in the men's 200-meter dash — along with Australian sprinter Peter Norman, the silver medalist — Dominis was one of the few photographers who happened to be in the media pen 20 feet away watching and, he said, "expecting a normal ceremony."
After the athletes had received their medals and "The Star-Spangled Banner" began to play, Dominis was looking through his camera lens when Smith and Carlos, bowing their heads, each raised a gloved fist (Smith wearing the right hand and Carlos the left of a single pair of gloves) in a black power salute, to protest racism in American society.
