| P h o t o g r a p h y | Sports
Friday Night Lives
Photos from the Town, the Team, and After ROBERT CLARK f or e w or d b y h a n i f a bdu r r a q i b
Robert Clark returns to the photographs of the Permian Panthers he took thirty years ago for the iconic Friday Night Lights, with a selection of his previously unpublished photos plus portraits of the players and the community as they are today In 1988, when Robert Clark was in his early twenties, he traveled to Odessa, Texas, to create a visual element for a book about a high school football team. That book was Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights—the chronicle of a season with the Permian Panthers, one of the state’s winningest teams of all time. About twenty photos appeared in Bissinger’s book, but Clark shot 137 rolls of film during his time with the Panthers. Friday Night Lives collects dozens of the never-before-seen images, taking us back to the team, the city, and that dramatic season. The archival photos, published here on the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Bizzinger’s bestseller, capture intimate moments among the players and their families and classmates, as well as the wider world of Odessa.
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Chad Payne (31) and Billy Steen (63) take a break during the Cooper High game.
