Project Update 3

On the 20th April I attended Farsley Celtic’s final game of the season as they hosted Buxton. As discussed in the last project update I intended to bring a camera to this game which I did and this allowed me to get better up close action shots of the game.

Due to the significance of the match, Farsley had a much higher attendance than normal which helped my crowd shots such as these ones below for example.

The image above was taken during the celebrations of Farsley’s opening goal. I have multiple photos of the sequence of the celebrations so I will ask Karl to help me pick out the best ones hopefully during our academic advisor meeting on the 29th.

After the goal the fans also happened to set a flare off which I captured and I think makes the image a lot more interesting.

In a previous academic advisor meeting with Karl, we discussed how it would be good to get a portrait photo of my interviewees and then an image of them doing their volunteering job to help out on a matchday. As the game was so busy, I only managed to photograph 2 out of my 4 interviewees and John the photographer was on holiday for this game so I couldn’t get one of him.

However, the two people who I did photograph were Josh and George and here are their photos below.

I think these images look good with the pitch behind them as it shows how close the players and volunteers are within the club and how the work they do off the field helps the players on the field. Also, with the photo of George above I did capture a version of him by the pitch without the lager in his hand in case it was deemed to be inappropriate.

Josh, who is in the first image is the media manager at the club so it was important to also capture an image of him fulfilling his role on a matchday.

Below are two examples of him doing this but I am unsure of what type of image to use.

This one above is tempting as Josh is the main focus of the image and is shown doing his media duties, but the fact you cannot see what he is recording could potentially mean the viewer just thinks he is stood using his phone for no reason.

This is why a photo like this could be more useful as it shows him clearly recording the Farsley player. I personally prefer the images with the players in and I have a few similar shots like this, I am just unsure whether someone might say that having the player in the photo takes the focus off Josh. Again this is something I am planning to discuss with Karl in our next meeting.

As I mentioned previously, the crowd at his game was much larger than usual so I was unable to get really close and capture George’s face in a crowd shot as I had planned, but it is arguable that the larger crowd shots such as this look better anyway as it portrays more of the people connected with the club that I did not interview.

As I mentioned right at the start of this post, the fact I had a camera and was pitch side allowed me to attempt to get some action shots. Below are a few examples of some decent ones I captured.

These are a few decent actions of the players celebrating and one about to take a corner.

However, below are a few that came out blurry. As I still getting to grips with using the camera I rented, it made it tricky to select the correct shutter speed setting in time to photograph what I wanted to capture leading to me missing a few good picture opportunities which was frustrating.

I was fortunate enough to be attending a game where if Farsley won and other results went their way, they would avoid relegation. Thankfully, they won 2-0 leading to a pitch invasion at the end which made for some good images such as these. I think the supporters on the pitch also helps to convey how much of a close knitted community Farsley is as a club which really fits the article I am currently in the process of writing.

So what’s my plan going forward in terms of shooting?

Unfortunately, Farsley don’t have any more games as their season has finished now for the summer. But they do still have a charity ‘legends’ game on May 5th. At that game I need to photograph John and Robert who I interviewed as well as them performing their matchday tasks and George is set to be playing on the supporters team so I will ask Karl if he thinks me getting some photos of George playing would be good for my project.

Furthermore, I will retake the images of the murals that I attached in a previous post with a camera this time to hopefully improve there quality for the assignment.