Double Header Frustration

Easter Monday saw me generally wasting my time at Chelsea and Fulham in a fairly arduous double header. Firstly, Chelsea were entertaining the Red Devils, Manchester United, in an FA Cup replay. For this shoot I was paired with fellow Focus Images snapper Andrew Timms who happens to be a crazy Man U fan so he was really looking forward to it.At Chelsea you are allowed anywhere on the far touchline, but not behind the goals or on the dugout touchline. The ideal spots are as close to the end of the pitch as possible, and particularly at the Shed End which is where Chelsea players most often celebrate in that corner. At this game, the Man U supporters had pretty much the whole Shed End so Andrew took that spot whilst I was up at the Matthew Harding stand end where Chelsea tend to celebrate in the other corner far from us snappers but in front of one of the club photographers who sit in that corner.Anyhow, a desperately dull first half yielded few decent pictures - a few "two men and a ball" and some stock solo player shots, but nothing worthwhile. I sent what I had at half time using the press wifi which reaches out to the far touchline quite nicely. Being an early kick off there was no desperate rush other than to beat the other snappers.The second half was a bit more interesting, with a completely stunning Demba Ba goal where he volleyed a high ball that came in over his shoulder straight into the net. Stunning talent. Being awake and alert, I got the shot - in fact a series of 3 frames - with a nice clean background, well composed, Ba off the ground, all looking beautiful on the back of the camera. Downloaded to the laptop in seconds, then angiush set in. The focus was off. It looks like the lens was halfway to acquiring focus from it's previous focal point a few minutes before where the action was further away. I hadn't reacted quickly enough and I'd missed the key shot. Aaaaggghhhhh!!!! Here's the pic if you want to share my anguish. Neither the subject nor the background are in focus. My fault completely - I should have been on Ba earlier to give the camera a bit more time to acquire focus. I'm talking half a second here. That's the difference between success and abject disaster.The Canon 70-200 2.8 mkII is an astonishing lens but it's my fault for not getting it on the subject fast enough. Granted the action was extremely quick, with a longish ball coming in from midfield where I swapped cameras whilst it was in the air. However, clearly the guys on my left and right were faster and got the shot as revealed in the papers the following day. Dang - so thin are the margins between success and failure at this game.I spent the rest of the match getting whatever stock player pics I could and any other significant action (not much) plus a bunch of manager shouting & pointing shots.There's nothing more disappointing than missing the key moment in a big game like this. I was hugely frustrated, especially when I saw that the other guys had nailed it and I had missed it. Chalk it up to doing too much slow rugby and my reactions being crap, but it was a professional disaster. Anyway, my pics are here (along with Andrew Timms's).About 6 hours then followed for me to ponder my crapness before Fulham kicked off against QPR. QPR really need the points to avoid relegation, but Fulham absolutely bossed the first half. I elected to do Fulham attack in the first half and got the 3 goals, celebrations etc in the bag, sent (using the wifi that just about reaches the far side of the pitch) so everything was looking good and I was forgetting the Chelsea disaster shot by shot. QPR were diabolically bad, with a give-away goal and an own goal to add to their worries.Second half, I thought it would be a Fulham rout so shot their attack again, but QPR came out fighting and got 2 as well as having a penalty saved. With 20 minutes left the story was looking a lot like a QPR draw or even win, so I scooted around the back of the stand and reappeared magically at the other end where I endured the last 20 minutes in a diabolically painful stresss position as QPR piled on the pressure. It was definitely the right decision as I already had a good set of Fulham goals in the bag and a fourth wouldn't make any difference to the result, but a 3rd QPR goal would be big news.As it happened, QPR didn't score again so it ended up 3-2 to Fulham. I was quite pleased with my set - all the goals, the celes that were available and some nice action. However, aside from a single online use on The Sun's website, not one shot was used. You can see the pics here.So overall a really hard, cold, frustrating day which was only tempered by a nice payday from January's Reading v Chelsea match where I had a bunch of shows that paid up this week. The ups & downs of football photography - crazy isn't it.