Return To Glory
In 1967, my father - former Green Bay Packers guard and kicker Jerry Kramer - kept a diary of his season with the Packers, which ended with Green Bay winning Super Bowl II. The diary was published in 1968 as Instant Replay, co-written by Dick Schaap many - including Esquire Magazine - have called it the greatest football book ever written.
In 1996, I pitched dad an idea to do a piece on Brett Favre and Bart Starr. He suggested I pitch it to Dick Schaap as a Sports Illustrated article. About two weeks later, Dick called me back and asked if, instead of an article, I’d like to shoot the photos for the book: Green Bay Replay.
With my MFA in Documentary Photojournalism and having just returned from retracing Mark Twain's route around the world, I was eager to jump into this next project which gave me a ringside seat to one of the greatest years in Packers franchise history. In all, I photographed four regular-season home games, two home playoff games and was on the sidelines for Super Bowl XXXI – the first time the Packers had won the Super Bowl since my dad and Forrest Gregg carried a victorious Vince Lombardi off the field after Super Bowl II.
In all, Green Bay Replay used 32 of my photos in black and white. In 2000, 50 photographs from this project began a three-year tour of Wisconsin museums and galleries.
In 2015, I called Jim Colton, former Director of Photography at Sports Illustrated and Newsweek. I told Jim 2016 would the 20th anniversary of that great season and asked him if he thought I had enough material for a coffee-table photography book. He said yes and suggested I self-publish it by launching a Kickstarter campaign.
Then I talked to my dad about the idea and he suggested I gather remembrances from some of the various individuals that were there. Return to Glory contains remembrances from Bob Harlan, Ron Wolf, Mike Holmgren, LeRoy Butler, Antonio Freeman, Bart and Cherry Starr, Paul Hornung, Willie Davis and many others -- 23 remembrances in all.
Return To Glory contains 104 full color photos. And was featured on Smithsonian Magazine’s Instagram Feed: https://www.dankphotos.com/News/Smithsonian-Mag-IG-II/thumbs
On ESPN’s The Sporting Life: http://www.espn.com/espnradio/play?id=17740253
And featured on American Photography: http://www.ai-ap.com/publications/article/18901/photographer-profile-daniel-kramer-it-was-a-su.html
The book was sold out in 2018.