Football at The Oval

Day 1 training and Australia House receptionPictures from the media call at Marble ArchMatch day pictures - Islands v Continent + Port Adelaide v Western BulldogsOK, so I'm officially won over by Aussie Rules. After covering the Australian Institute of Sport's easter tour earlier this year, I was asked back to photograph the first professional Australian Football League (AFL) in the UK for 6 years as the Western Bulldogs played a pre-season match against Port Adelaide at the Oval in London. Being a pre-season game no points were at stake, but both teams were treating the game very seriously with full squads and support staff having flown over. As support to the main game, the AFL Europe organisers had created two teams composed of the best players from Europe as a warm-up. The European Islands team was largely UK and Ireland players, and the European Continent team had players from Germany, Finland, Denmark and more.It wasn't just a "standard" match shoot though. Working for the AFL meant supporting all of their activities in the run up to the game at the Oval. This included training and a press conference, a reception at Australia House in London, a media call at Marble Arch, and then the game day itself with associated VIP lunch & speeches, both matches and all the supporting team lineups, crowd, signage, and general view shots that the AFL wanted.Being a bit busy, I split the work with my good pal Paul Terry so he got the two press calls and I had the beer & canapes and the match day. A good move I think!This whole job had a massive amount of variation in it. Going from pitchside shooting action of the warm up game to running inside for a VIP reception, then outside again to photograph the ICC world cricket trophy, then into the changing rooms, out again to get queues outside the ground, then in to manage team photographs, it was crazy busy all the time.For the teams' reception at Australia House I decided to use a remote flash to put a bit of side light on the speakers at the podium to avoid the startled look that direct on-camera flash can give. Using a Manfrotto clamp I put a diffused Yungnuo YN-565EX flash up and to the right to get some directional light. These flashes are super as they are a) very cheap compared to a Canon 580 EXII and b) handle full wireless slave ETTL for both Canon and Nikon as well as having an optical slave mode. Excellent! Using the 580 EXII on my camera I was able to tweak the remote flash up and down easily from the other side of the room which is very nice as it was up high and unreachable. Key to this is getting a good balance between the ambient light and the flash so it looks as natural as possible. A sample image below shows the effect with the remote flash coming from the right hand side.Unfortunately I didn't have my flash gels with me. As the interior of the function room at Australia House had a very warm white balance, and flash is relatively cool, I ended up with the light from the flash being a noticeably different colour to the ambient light. I should have put an orange gel on the flash to even everything up.I've got to say at this point that the players and coaching staff of the two AFL teams, as well as the assembled dignitaries, were all delightful, very relaxed and a joy to work with. I was able to chat freely to the head coaches, players and the various officials throughout the evening which was invaluable relationship building come match day when I had to arrange them all for team lineups and so on.As my day was ending, the Australian day was starting and with the AFL in Australia waiting for pictures, edits were done rapidly and picture selections sent off via 3G, allowing me to try some of the excellent Coopers beer and rather tasty Australian pies as the pictures were transmitted.Paul covered the Friday media call at Marble Arch with key players from the various teams that were going to be playing on the Saturday. With the monument itself plus plenty of red London buses around, it gave ample opportunity to capture some very "London" pictures.Match day itself was extremely busy. Arriving at 11:30 at the Oval I had the usual squabble with the gate steward about parking my motorbike. Despite there being plenty of space, I absolutely couldn't possibly park it inside at all. Not even tucked behind a tree or in a little corner. This sort of thing really gets my goat - it's not like it's a car that gets in everyone's way. After much heated debate I found a spot outside and happily the bike was still there when I returned later in the evening.I used my Olympus OM-D with an 8mm Panasonic fisheye lens quite extensively to capture the massive space that is the Oval. It's difficult to do justice to the place. Being used to football and rugby grounds, it is expansive and impressive. Having the little OM-D around my neck was very handy throughout the day.Unusually there were no media management folks there, so no bibs, credentials, sign-in etc. It was critical therefore to introduce myself to the senior steward and let him know I'd be wandering about and going onto the pitch for the toss, at the end of each quarter etc. Being polite and friendly is always good in this sort of situation. Then it was time to get stuck into my extensive brief for the day.After doing team shots of the European teams with gasometer required to be in the background, which was fun as the teams were in the shade and bright sunlight in the background needing careful exposure balancing & flash setting, it was onto the first match. Free to wander the perimeter at will it quickly became clear that it's a long way around! Fairly standard sports action followed, though with some added twists of having to get perimeter signage in shot, sponsor logos on kit etc.Half way through that match I had to run upstairs to photograph the VIP function in the England Suite. Going from very cold outside to hot & humid inside after jogging halfway around the perimeter and climbing 4 flights of stairs whilst wearing thermals is not recommended either for the photographer or their kit, which fogged up nicely. Some grip & grin pictures, scene setters and capturing the key guests and speakers was the order of the day before legging it back down to the pitch again to get the end of the first game.

5 minutes later...

As there was no trophy for the winners of the warm up match, I managed to persuade the International Cricket Council rep to temporarily donate the ICC world cup trophy to the Islands team for a celebration shot. How cool is that for these guys - holding a world cup in front of the main pavilion at the Oval. Fantastic.

Blimey - onward onward, no time for a break as I needed team shots of the pro AFL boys before their game. This time the pavilion had to be in the background, thankfully making the shots easier with softer light so a bit of fill flash was all that was needed. Note to self - insist on getting them all kneeling on the same knee next time rather than giving in to the very short time scale to get the shot done.

As they warmed up it was outside to shoot the crowds waiting to come into the ground. Initially I was a bit sceptical as there didn't seem to be that many people milling around inside the perimeter walls. When I got outside though it was crazy. Thousands of people were queuing to make their way into the ground and the atmosphere was excellent. There appeared to be a mix of Aussies with various team scarves to Londoners who were just looking for a good day out. It's worth noting that the Boris Bike stands are easily robust enough to take a 6'2" photographer standing on top of them, and they are suitably spaced to allow you to put each foot on a separate stand and get a nice elevated view.

Onward onward, as I had to be back inside to get the teams lined up for the national anthems, and the match officials, and then the coin toss. I also spotted Jan Kruger who had arrived to shoot for Getty. "There's my chance of any pictures in the papers shot to blazes" I thought. Jan's a great guy and good fun to be around - he seemed to be enjoying a new sport to photograph - sort of.

Game time. Action, signage, sponsor logs, ball, setting, different positions, players etc etc. Crazy. I decided to split the game into quarters, which is handy as there are 4 quarters in the game anyway. Shoot stock action in the first quarter, shots with the pavilion in the background in the second quarter, crowd shots and up in the stands for the third quarter, and more stock action in the fourth. Between quarters I was on the pitch shooting the team huddles.

Once you've figured out what is going on, the game itself is excellent. It's a mixture of football, rugby and basketball as far as I could work out. The players are immensely fit and hit just as hard as anyone I've seen playing rugby. Add in a massive vertical dimension as players go for marks and it gets really interesting. I was knackered just trotting around the perimeter - what it is like to run hard across a massive pitch like the Oval doesn't bear thinking about. Just shooting across such a huge pitch is a challenge in itself and I found myself on the 400 most of the time. However the game moves really quickly and next moment the play is right on top of you (literally). I spent some time waiting for action in the goal area with the pavilion behind and eventually got it (pic at the top of this post). I reckoned that would be the key shot of the whole UK tour so it was worth waiting for and sacrificing the 70-200 for a 17-40 for a quarter, and indeed the AFL used it as the lead image for their match report.In the end the scoreline was 88-87 in Port Adelaide's favour after a last minute goal kicked from completely the other side of the ground from where I was. No chance to get a shot of that one then. Cracking excitement right to the end, and the crowd loved it. I reckon next year should see a full points-paying AFL league game in the UK after this session. Good work by the AFL Europe and main AFL teams on bringing this all together.