Photojournalism Assignment

A Day in the Life of a Football Match

For this assignment I decided to choose a local football match between Winchester City and Brading Town to be my focus. I felt that I could portray the progression of time by capturing six photographs at various stages and illustrating the different events occurring during the match. As far as lighting went, I did not really have much control over the levels available. Luckily, it was a bright afternoon, so I was able to obtain good light quality in my photos and was pleased with the variety of colours and shadows in some pictures. I tried to move around to different areas of the ground to get various angles on the pitch, and again I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time for actions on the pitch being in a good location for me to get a photograph of. All of my photos were taking with the camera in the sports mode setting, to enable me to get optimum shutter speed and aperture.

My first photograph shows both teams lined up, exchanging handshakes before the match. I tried to frame the photograph so the majority of the players are included in the shot, with as little empty space in the frame as possible. I am pleased with how my photo came out, and only did a small amount of cropping to the photo to get rid of any empty space, leaving enough grass space free to place my caption. The placing of my captions was something that could be done in similar positions for the majority of my photographs as there generally was a patch of grass with no objects in to obstruct any text.

I selected my second photograph as it captured the opening goal, a vital point in any football match as it can define the rhythm of the game. This photograph in particular was chosen as the viewer can see the ball on its way into the net, with the goalkeeper looking on helplessly and the Winchester striker with his arm raised in celebration. Like my other photographs the only editing carried out was cropping of unrelated items or figures only half in the shot.

The next photograph in the collection shows a Brading player taking a shot at the Winchester goal. This photo was not edited in any way from the original as I was very happy with how it came out. The three Winchester defenders are not standing in front of one another and are in full view and the shot shows the ball just as it is leaving the opposing players boot. I also felt the picture was busy without being too crowded. I feel there is a good balance between action between the players and empty space with not a lot happening. I would have preferred to place the caption higher on the grass, perhaps above the visible line of the pitch, but when placed in this position, the shadows on the pitch interfere with the text.

My forth photograph is perhaps my favourite of the group in the way it puts across what is happening. I like the juxtaposition between the celebrating Brading players, with the discontent of the Winchester players having just conceded a goal. As a result, I did not edit this photo in any way other than adding my caption, which for this photograph had to be in white font, in a different location to the others as there was not enough free space on the grass for my text.

The penultimate photo of the set was originally a long shot of a Winchester player jumping and heading the ball towards goal. I decided that I would crop some of the trees from the top of the picture, to give more of a focus to the players and the action by having the area that was not cropped enlarged.

The final photograph depicts the end of the match, with the players and officials shaking each other’s hands. I felt this shot was necessary as it brings a conclusion to the event. I again, cropped the picture, taking some of the trees from the top of the shot. I would like to have cut the figure furthest right, as he is only half in shot. However, removing him would cut off part of the next player’s boot off and I did not want to make the picture too small and cramped by cropping out all three of the players furthest to the right of the shot.

Altogether, I am pleased with my set as I believe it shows a progression of time and tells the story of the event quite well. This was the second attempt at this assignment, as I had previously tried the same theme at an earlier match, but was not able to attain shots as good as these, so felt the need to try it again and produce some shots of better quality. All of my photographs were staged in a way, but spontaneous in another. The match as a whole was a staged event, I knew it was going to happen and I would be able to take photographs. However, the actual outcome and action of the match could not have all been determined before hand, other than I knew teams would shake hands at the start of the match and at the end, with some sort of events occurring in between, and it was down to me to capture these events in a way that told the story of the event.