Friday Night Lives: Photos from the Town, the Team, and After

Thirty years ago, Buzz Bissinger released the book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream about the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team in Odessa, TX. Even decades later, this book is still regarded as one of the best sports books written. The cover also has an iconic image taken by photographer Clark. In Friday Night Lives, Clark publishes more of his photographs in a coffee-table-style book. Not only does he include photos from the 1988 football season, he includes current photos of the team. The foreword by Hanif Abdurraqib eloquently explains how this book and also the 2014 movie of the same name was captivating for so many people. “The story has always been about humanity, anxiety, loss, fear, and the promise of a place and the people in it,” Abdurraqib writes. The photographs are powerful, and captions aren’t included until the end of the book, which makes the photos standing on their own even more impactful. Clark’s afterword summarizes his journey taking the photographs for Bissinger’s book and the impact it had on him.