OCTOBER 2023: CRAIG FLEMING
“MAKE A PORTRAIT OF FOOTBALL”
This month, fashion and portrait photographer Craig Fleming sets an assignment where he challenges you to make a portrait of football/soccer; ‘the beautiful game’. This assignment was set initially in episode #403.
THE ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
From Craig: “I’d like you to make a portrait of football, which can be a traditional portrait, or because it’s broadly a single picture that tells a story of the sport, it could as equally be an action shot or something like a screwed up ticket on the floor! Anyone going to the game, or involved in the sport, including those who sell merchandise perhaps, there are no strict rules or parameters. This assignment is wide and varied.”
Asked to recount a strange or amusing photograph in terms of football from his ‘Portraits of Britons’ series which involves a study of the ‘beautiful game,’ Craig remembered this; “It’s a football that was smashed onto a spiky fence. I just read into it that it must be someone who had been playing football at the neighbouring steelworks during their lunch hour and kept kicking the ball over into somebody’s garden. That irate gardener with his, you know, smashed up peas or something, has got the ball, and upon being asked, “Can we have our ball back mister,” he’s just basically smashed it onto this spike and said, “Yeah, there you go.”
HOW TO ENTER. IMPORTANT NOTES ON FILE SIZE AND ENTRIES.
Send your entries to stories@photowalk.show. Pictures should be 2,500 pixels wide if possible for optimisation. Feel free to provide text as well, if you think it will help explain the location, context etc.
Entries are shown below and good luck!
Neale
CRAIG FLEMING
Craig Fleming provides an idea of the kind of photographs you could consider for this assignment.
TIM CLARK - FLASK WINNER FOR OCTOBER
Football on Waterloo bridge during its forced closure by Extinction Rebellion a few years back. This is usually a very busy London bridge but a pop-up eco-village was created just out of frame which stayed there for 7 days. I deliberately wanted the financial city in this.
WILLIAM OLDHAM
I'm a recent follower of the Photowalk podcasts & have been working my way through the back catalogue when out on my own photowalks in our local woodland.
Whilst listening to #403 I was intrigued by the October "MAKE A PORTRAIT OF FOOTBALL" assignment set by Craig Fleming & this got me thinking of the photos I've taken during visits to Old Trafford to watch Manchester United. It’s a team I have followed since 1963 when I watched the live TV broadcast by the BBC of the FA Cup Final between Leicester City & Manchester United, United winning 3-1 and my hero at the time Denis Law scored the 1st goal.
Denis was part of the United Trinity of George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, and is the only one still with us following the loss of George Best in 2005 and the recent passing of Bobby Charlton.
Most of my photos taken at Old Trafford are blurry phone shots of penalties, etc and certainly not worthy of the October assignment.
Whilst reflecting on the sad loss of Bobby Charlton, my mind was drawn towards the way Manchester United always commemorate with great dignity the Munich Air Disaster that occurred on the 6th of February 1958. 44 people were aboard the plane that crashed whilst attempting its ill-fated third take off, 20 died at the scene and a further 3 people in hospital.
One photo I do have is of the huge "We'll Never Die Flag" that gets unfurled by the fans at the Stretford end of the Stadium on the nearest home game to the 6th of Feb. It’s a great tribute to lives lost and very emotional seeing the fans passing the flag above their heads.
DAN PHILLIPS
I'm not much of a football fan, but I was determined to take on the challenge of trying to create a picture that met Craig's brief. After several false starts, the wall in the attached image was discovered to be a five-minute walk from where I've recently started working. It's painted on the side of a local team's changing rooms. Although it is showing its age a little, I love the texture and colours.
I think I've achieved the set goal (see what I did there), and after a bit of a lax period with my photography due to a few bumps in life's road, I'm looking forward to next month's assignment!
KELVIN BROWN
After the opposition won a penalty shootout, they celebrated in the face of the home team’s fans and things became problematic. My first assignment entry from a game of few decent shots but this was, the right place right time.
WALEED ALZUHAIR
My photowalk here was in an old neighbourhood in Riyadh called “Me’akal”. I noticed this single goal, which appears to be welded together by a local blacksmith, standing outside a graffiti-rich wall of a local school. The graffiti is mostly names, I’m guessing they’re the names of those who commissioned the blacksmith :)
CASEY SISTERSON
I was in Belgrade, Serbia for some work and was enjoying the amazing nightlife on the streets. It is a street photographer’s dream in Belgrade. A van full of very serious-looking Police unloaded directly in front of the hotel I was staying in and immediately quick marched to Republic Square. That doesn’t sound like football to me you might say. Well, we quickly found out that the police were there to escort the several buses full of opposing team soccer fans to the local field. There were no issues but several hundred soccer fans unloaded and started their 5km walk to the game. They take fan security very seriously in Serbia. As a Canadian it was one of the many fascinating things to experience.
MICHAEL MIXON
I went to my son's soccer game with every intention of taking a photo that captured the spirit of the game in some way, but as I wandered the sideline looking for an exciting play or patch of dramatic light, I came across this kid sitting with his mom and sister. He was utterly disinterested in the game. His sister wouldn't play with him (she was busy watching), and his mom wouldn't let him wander off. So he squirmed, a lot, often smashing his face into the back of his chair.
So while this may not capture "the beautiful game", I suppose the spectator who just wants the game to end is also an unavoidable part of soccer. :-)
MARK CREAMER
Recently I had the privilege of attending, and photographing, my first soccer match. The opponents were the women's teams of Cedarville University and Oklahoma Baptist University, hosted by Cedarville. Having never even seen a live match before I didn't expect much from my photos but was pleasantly surprised that I was able to capture some nice moments. I call this one "Laser Focus" as the goalkeeper from Oklahoma successfully deflected the ball and watched as it sailed past the goal. I'm also including a moment (below) at the end of the match, as both teams stood arm in arm in a circle with heads bowed in a moment of faith and reflection, after which they hugged and went on their way. Truly a "beautiful game" experience.
ANTONY HIBBLE
I have simply called this one 'Hero Worship.'
Loved this month's assignment as these are my two favourite things in life - football and photography! (Well family aside of course!).
Growing up in Leicester, my 10 year old son has become a devout Leicester fan which has taken him on a journey of incredible highs and some reality checking lows! Basking in the glory of a Premier league title and FA Cup win was soon met with relegation out of the top league and back to reality.
To me, this photo sums it all up. We were about to enter the stadium and I looked over my shoulder to see him stood there just staring at his hero Jamie Vardy on the wall and knew I had to take a photo! I love the way he is also wearing 9 on his shirt and possibly dreaming that one day that could be him. We all can all dream hey?
See more work on Antony’s Instagram.
PAUL FRIDAY
Friday night school football. Parents huddling in cars or shivering on the sidelines, wine and warmth delayed for duty and pride. Young athletes running as if the weather didn't exist, steaming in the night air. and the final treck to the changing rooms, studs clattering on the path like hoofbeats.
MIKE MILLER
This is a handheld long exposure that happened under the lights at an adult women's game.
It was made 15 minutes after sunset using camera settings of ISO 200, f/9 and 0.8 of a second. The focal length of the lens was recorded as 55mm (on a crop sensor body.) The fields do have artificial lighting and the image I made was supplemented by the field lights.
As the Club Head Coach of my soccer Club (I'm now retired as of this year), I would make images of the children playing between coaching whatever group I had. Since, at the time, I was also responsible for posting images to the Club's social media feeds, I needed some images from our Adult Women's League, who played at 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM on Mondays. I wandered over and decided to make some long-exposure images to post for something a little different. Ideally, the play should be near the sideline (touchline) that you are photographing near to. This particular image had the ball going to the left, with two attackers and two defenders in close proximity. As an attempted tackle was about to be made by two players coming towards the ball, I pressed the shutter, panned a bit for the movement of the ball and hoped for the best. It's also tricky to keep out of the frame lights from cars that are in a nearby parking lot.
COLIN MAYER
(Remembering there are of course other forms of football! Here is Colin Mayer’s entry for this month’s assignment - with the lead picture above.)
Hello Neale,
Been a while since I’ve sent in my homework.
I like sports photography as a genre, so when the challenge came out for football or soccer photography, I got quite excited to go out and get some fresh images for the assignment.
Problem. The ‘Australialand’ soccer season is over, we don’t talk about how we bowed out in the first round of the Rugby World Cup, and the National Rugby League and the AFL grand finals are also over. It seemed there was only cricket left. However, I did forget that Aussie rules woman’s games (AFLW) were still running. Even better is there was a cracker of a game to be played at Henson Park, in the heart of Inner Western Sydney, on Saturday. So off I went.
The AFLW games are very family-orientated. At the Sydney Swans games gambling ads are banned and no alcohol is sold. There are plenty of sausage sizzles and soft drinks though, which makes for a great family-oriented outing. Other footie codes could learn a thing or two.
Rules:
Each team has 18 players on the field four players available for interchange. The game has four 20-minute periods, and the umpire starts each quarter by bouncing the ball in the center circle.
The ball is moved around the field by a combination of kicking, handballing and running. When the ball is kicked, the players contest the ball in the air and if it is caught cleanly by a player on the same team as the kicker, it is called a mark. The player who marks the ball can then take a shot at goal or kick the ball to a teammate in a better position who provided they also catch it cleanly for a mark, can then make the same decision.
When running with the ball, the player must bounce and catch it every 15 meters or so to avoid being penalised or pass the ball either through kicking or handballing it to a teammate. A handball is performed by punching the ball in the desired direction.
A player can score either a goal or a behind, with six points and one point awarded respectively. To score a goal, a player must kick the ball between the two middle posts, without it being ‘touched’ by another player. A behind is scored if the ball is kicked between the inside and outside posts, hits the two taller posts, or is carried behind or handballed across the goal line by a player, between any of the posts. The score is then presented to reflect the number of goals (six pointers) and the number of behinds (one-pointers), with the combined score in brackets.
Whilst I was barracking for the Sydney Swans, Hawthorn was the better side on the day.
Final score: Sydney 3.8(26) Hawthorne 5.10(40).
JOSEPH POELLOT
I was out trying to find some sports action to practice with my new 150-600mm zoom when I ran across this soccer match on Hawaii’s Big Island. The young boy had already scored a few goals, and I really liked the determination on the young ladie's faces as they worked to stop him again.
PETER MADDERN
It was Sunday afternoon and I went for a low tide walk on the beach at Marazion. It was the start of school half term and the beach was busy with a constant stream of people going across to St Michael's Mount. The beach here is perfect for children with a huge expanse of flat hard sand. As a child I spent many hours here playing cricket and football and today a group of youngsters were doing just that.
MARTIN PENDRY
In our household, the undisputed football fanatic is none other than Olive, the delightful pooch we're currently dog-sitting. Olive's enthusiasm is palpable, with a curated collection of footballs strategically positioned by the door, a gentle reminder that every walk must include a game of fetch. Strolling in the park means remaining vigilant for any impromptu football games because, without fail, Olive transforms into a sprinting dynamo, chasing after the ball with rocket-like speed.
But it's not just footballs that capture Olive's attention. The humble mop, too, becomes the subject of an exhilarating chase and tug-of-war, turning our everyday chores into lively, interactive games. Olive's zest for life truly adds an element of playfulness to every moment we spend together. 🐶⚽ #FootballFanatic #PawsAndPlayfulness
See more of Martin’s work on his Instagram.
