R.I.P. Dave Martin

AP's Kate Brumback had the difficult task of remembering colleague Dave Martin, the longtime AP photographer who passed away on New Year's Eve covering a bowl game for the wire service.

Brumback writes:

Martin covered nearly every major news event in the South over the past 30 years — including Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill — and he traveled to sporting events around the world and to conflicts in Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq. His award-winning visual storytelling was splashed across countless newspaper front pages and the covers of Sports Illustrated and other magazines.

At sporting events, he was well-known for always managing to get himself in the perfect position to take the shot of winning athletes dousing their coach with water or Gatorade. Done right, such images capture the flourish of airborne water caught in the stadium lights, but they require great timing and positioning.

Tuesday night's game was no exception — Martin perfectly showed Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin's startled but jubilant expression as he's splashed.

"Every photojournalist in the country knows the trademark Dave Martin picture was the coach being dunked," said AP South regional photo editor Mike Stewart, who first met Martin in 1989.

His most famous golf image appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, capturing Phil Mickelson's winning putt at the 2004 Masters. Here it is below, from a slideshow of Martin's work embedded above the accompanying story linked above.