England v Scotland and Reading v Chelsea

Boom! That's a cracking start by England who beat Scotland 38-18 in the first round of the 6-Nations on Saturday at Twickenham. The team seemed to gel really well, with Farrell running the show and Twelvetrees (why do I find it so hard to spell that?) and Ashton having a cracking time of it. Were it not for a number of ball spillages in the last 10m they'd have had an even bigger score. That seems to be a long-lived trait of England's - have a fantastic inspiring run from behind the halfway then spill it within sight of the line. If they could sort that out they'd be laughing.Aside from nearly being floored by Toby Flood as he ran off the pitch after warm up whilst I was moving to get a shot of something else (makes a change from getting hit by flying rugby balls during kicking practice which seems to happen every time I'm there), I had a very nice day of it. Twickenham was a sell out - a fantastic crowd as it always is when Scotland are in town. The rivalry between the supporters is very good humoured albeit with an undercurrent of hatred which is kept nicely in check with a Guinness or two. There was a lovely moment after all the crowd had left the stadium when a lone piper played the Flower of Scotland. I couldn't for the life of me see where he was but I think he was tucked in one of the entrances to the seating areas - spine tingling stuff though.I also had my little Olympus OM-D on remote duty aimed squarely at the area under the posts in case Ash the Splash should do his thing. I've found that my 45mm 1.8 lens (90mm equivalent) is perfect for this as it's long enough to get nice & close in to cover the whole area under the posts. Any wider and you'd just be cropping everything. Happily,the remote and the footswitch that I used to operate it worked perfectly. What's not so good is that the pitch edge has been re-profiled on the north side so one's remote camera sits low down and the try line is obscured by the grass slope. It's fine on the south side. I think it would have worked for an Ashton splashdown as he'd be a few feet up in the air, and I did get Danny Care's last try with it but didn't bother using that shot as I had a better one from the 400mm. Clearly I need something a bit taller than a gorillapod so a proper tripod will be with me next time out against France.Another point of interest is that, with the lighting coming from the sides of the stadium, any try shots of the players tend to have very dark faces. Coupled with the lighting in the corners being quite dark relative to the rest of the pitch (1/640th ISO3200 f/2.8) I was left wishing I had a 1Dx or two. Pushing the exposure in Lightroom was the only way to get anything decent out of the Ashton and Twelvetrees try shots. You'll often get a better picture shooting from the sides as light hits from a much better angle.Talking of Danny Care - my intricately laid plans for the end of the game were cast aside as he scored right at the end. As it was the Calcutta Cup, there's a trophy presentation after the match by the tunnel. This neccessitated getting over from the far corner around to the tunnel area in double-quick time, so I'll often set off with a minute to go. However, Danny Care scored so I got shots of that first and was a bit late getting around the pitch to the tunnel area. It's always chaos around there and I wanted to get a good spot for the presentation and subsequent team shot, and being late isn't recommended as the place is swarming with photographers, players, officals and all sorts.However, a bit of tactical positioning worked well and I got a decent spot for where the team shot would take place. Unusually only Chris Robshaw went up to collect the trophy, probably to save time. I used a 70-200 with a flash as it's dark as a coal cellar up there, and I'd left the 400 back at my spot. Next time I think I'll keep the 400 on and not use flash as there's a major red-eye issue when using it from that far back. Robshaw came back down with the trophy and chaos ensued once more as we all had to move back whilst keeping our hard fought for positions. It all worked nicely on a 24mm lens, exposed for the ambient light with flash to fill on ETTL, but clearly someone forgot the champagne.As per usual I was on sponsorship photography duties before, during and after the game, but this time I had the able assistance of young Seb Daly, a Focus Images shooter, who did a fantastic job and got a pic of Twelvetrees into the Mail Online as well. The sponsorship brief for O2 was comprehensive as always, involving pre and post match coverage of entertainment, including player visits to the boxes and Blueroom after the game, and all sorts of signage, crowd pictures etc to cover. Having Seb on hand was a huge help as there's simply so much to do. He got the plum job of Mike Brown Mako Vunipola in the corporate boxes after the game (always good for a quick beer or two though Seb is far to professional to partake). A first for me was shooting the adverts in the gents toilets. Now going into the gents with a camera (let alone 3) is a bit of a no-no. Taking shots of posters over the urinals is in another league altogether. Still, if a job's worth doing...Swiftly onto football. I got burned at the Reading v West Brom game a few weeks back when I figured I'd shoot Reading attack. Reading didn't turn up in the first half, and the goal was at the other end, so I put myself squarely in front of the West Brom supporters to shoot West Brom attack in the 2nd half. West Brom were so much better this had to be the right strategy.And so West Brom scored their second, nice cele right in front of me, shot and cele in the bag, captioned and sent. I'm sorted here I thought (along with the 10 other snappers either side of me). Then Reading woke up, scored 3 in the dying minutes and won the damned game. All the vital action was at the opposite end and a monster cele was in the opposite corner. I watched the value of my shots tumble to nothing and got very fed up very quickly. Gggahhhhgg!Next up, Reading v Chelsea. Right, I'm going to shoot Reading attack, and stay there I told myself. Keep the faith. Once again Reading didn't turn up in the 1st half. They didn't turn up for most of the second half either, and Chelsea were 2 up and cruising. The majority of snappers were down at the Chelsea attack end in front of their fans. Ha ha ha - little do you know I thought to myself with my fingers and toes crossed.Meanwhile the crowd were amusing themselves by swapping some most excellent chants. It's the first time I've heard the away fans applaud as the home fans insult the away manager. Benitez has a bit of a popularity issue I think. The best chant had to be Chelsea's "you only sing when you're shopping" referencing the Waitrose sponsorship of Reading - very funny and applauded by the Reading lot. But I digress. By this point I was getting fed up and moved stealthily down the side of the pitch a bit to shoot Benitez and McDermott from closer in. The big story is all about Benitez I reckoned.Then Le Fondre rocks up, nails a goal, and I'm down the side as he runs right to where I was sitting in the corner and does the celebration thing. Ggggaahhhgggg! I got a bit of the cele but missed the shot on goal completely as I was on the managers. Worse, I span around to see what the noise was about and didn't shoot the manager reaction to the goal. Jeez - I'm crap.Fast forward a couple of minutes (93rd minute I think) and Reading get a free kick inside their half. Federici, their keeper steps up to take it. I'm still down the side waiting for the final whistle. I know Feds has a monster kick. They couldn't score from this could they? I start legging it back to the corner. Serves me right - I should have just stayed put like I'm meant to. The kick goes into the box, it's helped on and Le Fondre slams it into the net as I'm still running. Needless to say I miss the shot but the cele comes right at me and all the players pile in. Some excellent pictures result as the place goes completely bonkers. Amazing. What a result.Of course I believe I have the best pictures out of everyone there largely due to my unconventional positioning wisdom. Unfortunately only the Mirror agreed with me as you can see below, with the others carrying single player shots of Le Fondre's cele before he got over to me.As a lesson in positioning, go with your gut feel. Too many times I've changed my mind at the last minute and my gut was right after all. As for Reading, it'll be interesting to see if they can keep the momentum. They had a phenomenal 2nd half of the last season, so maybe they can keep it up, and stay up.