Shrove Tuesday Event

Sedgefield Ball Game, previous work:



As february approaches, following my trips to various locations during January, a unique yearly event in my home town of Sedgfeild, in county durham is about to commence. Each year on shrove tuesday an event called 'Sedgefield ball game' takes place. This event is something which i a familiar with and is something I have attended every year for almost all my life. This event is the perfect interesting and busy kind of event I have been looking for photograph since starting my major project. I have photographed the event before and I am familiar with the days events and the majority who attend. 

To try and best explain what 'Sedgefield ball game' really is, here is a brief explanation...


http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/watch-mayhem-madness-annual-sedgefield-10863643

"It’s a game of few rules which has been around for more than 900 years but it is definitely not going out of fashion. The annual Sedgefield ball game - played every Shrove Tuesday - was under way today with dozens of locals taking part. The ball game started at 1pm, when a four inch diameter leather ball is passed through a metal ring on the village green. The players then kick the ball through the village to the streams where it must be placed three times then back through the ring before sundown. The free-for all battle attracted scores of onlookers who enjoyed the chaotic spectacle."

The event is unique to Sedgefield and is therefore seen as a very intereting event and tradition to anyone not from the area. Many photographers and journalists come to the village to also photograph the event. As I found when photographic Durham miners gala, I found I felt more at ease when photographing an event when a person with a camera was not seen as unusual. 

Here are some of the images I produced from Sedgefield shrove tuesday ball game 2016.

There is a vast range of shots which I produced from this day however upon reflection, this images above and the image below work very well in my opinion. The focus of the images are of the people watching the event. The audience or the passers by. I like the way I have managed to capture the drama of the day by capturing the people viewing the game as appose to focusing my images on the games itself. 

The style of these images are exactly what I would hope to produce again at this years event. However I understand that in order to tell a visual story of the days events, especially in a photo book, I think it will be quite vital to include at least some images of the actual game itself being played in order to make the visual narrative make sense to people viewing the book or images with no knowledge of this game or event. 

What I have always really enjoyed about covering an event by taking images is the way at the end the images can be put together to tell a story. I used these particular images to create a presentation for my peers in which i edited the images down and presented a selection in order from beginning of the day to the end, telling the story of my version of the days events. I felt these images worked really well in colour so when coming to photograph this years shrove tuesday ballgame I aim to do the same.