Longtime Birmingham News photographer Charles Nesbitt, whose most famous photo was the often-reprinted snapshot of legendary coaches Paul “Bear” Bryant and Pat Dye sitting together in a hunting lodge, has died.

Nesbitt died Nov. 23, his wife, Jane, said. He was 81.

Nesbitt shot thousands of photographs for news and feature stories in Alabama, but is best known for a single frame of the two coaches.

In the photo, the two men are engaged in a private conversation, just months after they had faced each other as opposing head coaches in the Iron Bowl.

Bryant’s Alabama team won that 1981 game at Legion Field in Birmingham, 28-17, defeating Dye’s first Auburn team.

It was a Saturday afternoon in February 1982, a couple of months after Bryant’s historic 315 th victory .

Bryant and Dye

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