Events

Event: Football Game


One event I chose to photograph within the process of finding a fitting event more my major project to make a book from was a football game. With the same concept in mind once again, I set out to capture not the event itself, but the people involved in the days events. The people watching the game, betting, drinking, eating, celebrating and sulking. I used my small digital compact camera which I newly purchased as I knew this would be perfect for snapping images of people as they would be unaware of my camera.

I tended to be very drawn to supporters wearing the Middlesbrough merchandise or anything red to support the players. I found some very interesting individuals to photograph and i feel some of the images even have a slight humour to them although they were intended to just be simple documentary shots of exactly what I myself was seeing. 

I this image I really like the way the subject of the image, male in the red hat and scarf, is walking in from the side of the image. As appose to the focus of the image being exactly central the eye of the viewer is drawn to the left hand side of the image first, before then viewing what is going on in the foreground of the image of all the other people rushing by.  

The purchasing of my new compact camera really shows off to be beneficial in shots such as they as the subjects carry on to act natural and are completely unaware of the presence of my camera. 

Although the image below is slightly blurred, and could have been captured much better. I wanted to include this image and the image above, as both of the images capture the emotion of shock or enjoyment when watching a football match. This is something I was really wanting to try capture as appose to the actually footballers themselves playing the football. I think these images capture that emotion and what watching football is like to  certain extent however If i were to go and capture images of a football match again, would definitely want to focus more upon this aspect and really try and get some better shots like this. 

I really liked the images I managed to capture this day. However much like some of the other subjects I've attempted to photograph, I feel in order to make an interesting narrative or a photo book, the event would have to be photographed on several occasions as appose to just one day. If I were to photograph every Middlesbrough game for a full season or even several years I can image I would be  able to create a brilliant body of work, made up of many interesting shots. Photographing just one day however, doesn't create as interesting of a narrative as I feel it could after being shot several times. This is definitely an interesting idea and good concept which I would be more than willing to start as a personal project once leaving university.