With my main focus on becoming a professional sports photographer, my main research will focus on the works of photographers who have the experience in the fields I hope to work within in the near future.This will be the main basis of my personal projects this year.
while shooting sports normally involves fast action images, freezing the action for the viewer to admire. I also want to focus on individual participants of these activity’s through action images and portraiture. I want to embrace the gladiatorial feelings these events evoke, the battles unfolding in front of the camera, and emotions attached. strength commitment and pride.
James Cannon http://www.cannonphotography.co.uk
I have been drawn towards James Cannon’s work through past research into sports photographers. I particularly love his series of images focusing on five a side football, taken for a personal project of his own. Although just a kick-about in the park his images capture the effort and roughness attached to the recreational pastime, his portraitures of the players capture the scene perfectly, without context they could easily be mistaken for shell shocked soldiers, the 1000 yard stare and dilated pupils jumping from the images. They also draw similarities to some of the images of first responders to major tragedies.
James also manages to capture the controlled brutality involved in sports, featured in his series of images following Coventry Rugby club he thrusts the viewer into the middle of the action. Looking more akin to a back street brawl than a sporting event, a player is dragged across the ground by his helmet while surround by muddied foes who tower over him. A tribal maul of testosterone and muscle clash in a battle for a leather ball instead of a Kingdom or throne.
Another photographer I have looked towards for inspiration is Marc Aspland, the Times photographer and Canon Ambassador, his knack of seeing an image before it has happened allows for him to be in the right place at the right time. The compositions just jump from the image, telling a story and conveying the message to the viewers, the perfect image for sports publications.
Marc also looks for the usual lighting that often cast across football pitches and sports stadiums, in part thanks to the high stands and roofs his eyes spot images that break the norm. Such as the image below, the graduated light extending across the frame offers only a subtle hint of the goalkeeper hidden in the left of the frame. Looking more art like than sports based it manages to capture a sort of theatrical aesthetic to the composition.
while looking for unusual aspects involved in sports plays a large part in Marc’s work, his bread and butter fast shutter speed images feature heavily in my research. Freezing the action allowing the viewer to study the moment that flashed in a blink of an eye. The wide open aperture throwing the distant background into a mosaic of colour. The main subject standing separated from the amphitheatre that surrounds them.
Football photography is my desired career path so it makes sense that I check out the standards demanded by the industry leaders, who better to study would be the work of the SNS group. A talent group of photographers cover all sporting events country wide, they provide images daily to all the major press related outlets and professional clubs in Scotland.
The top image used the photographers low ankle to accentuate the size and stature of the player celebrating, looking upward he has also captured the background stadium perfectly, allowing easy recognition of the surroundings. The shallow depth of field blurring the distracting crowd.
Image 2 captures the sheer frustration that players can suffer during spells of the match, including the strip and club badge also improves the composition as a whole. This type of image would suit a club social media account usage.
Bottom image is a typical club PR based shot, 4 goals scored in a match , press buzzing for a story and an image to support it is needed. Holding a match ball, presented to anyone who scores 3 or more goals in a match and having 4 fingers held up adds context to the shot. possible reducing the period of usage linked to it but it will be in demand for the period it is mostly relevant to. The club/s stadium in the back ground providing a visual nod to the location. The use of an off camera flash has helped reduce the impact of the shading of the overhanging stand.
Capturing goals, celebrations and those magic/ mental moments is what being a sports photographer is about and this is where the SNS group excells. The so called money shot could be splashed across the world within minutes, fans glued to their internet connected devices awaiting the latest match updates.
The images above again from the SNS Group website shows a selection of the type of image desired in the football world, the main image features an off the ball incident, a major flash point and considered a game changing moment, gracing many a back and front page the following days. Top right captures the sheer joy of scoring for your club, knowing where a player might run if they score is valuable asset to a match photographer, bottom right captures the match winning moment, all the facial expressions visible as the penalty kick is slotted home, the positioning of the photographer has taken prevents the goals from obscuring the action.
Craig Murray Photography 