Match of the Day

Saturday night has been the time of day for my new blog post for 2 weeks in a row, but when else is a better time to post a picture called Match of the Day? Perhaps only the British audience will understand this, but of course Match of the Day is the national institution TV show, showing all the highlights of the Saturday's football games. It will be a bit lacklustre for me this week though, as my team is playing tomorrow (#grumpyface).

Photography is a wonderful hobby to have, but once people know you have it, it leads to many requests for picturing various local events taking place. This was a cup final that took place in my local town of Newbury in May, and I was asked to capture some pictures of the Canal Bar FC (team in red and gold shirt) in action. Sadly they lost the final, but it gave me an opportunity to practice some sports photography. I am very interested in this field, and would of course love to picture some of the great sporting events, but I think due to the cost involved, it is a field of photography you have to work your way up to (unless of course having a few thousand quid lying around is not an issue). There are lots of local events that take place though, where you can learn to take your first steps in sports photography, before you make it to Wembley!

Even for a local football match, I tried to make this picture come alive, so I used quite a bit of Topaz Clarity, as well as some cross processing (in Color Efex 4), to bring out the details of the pitch, and give it a more attractive shade of green. The Topaz Clarity gave a great boost to the details of the football shirts as well.

Tip: I am no experienced football photographer, but I do know the key to a great action shot is to have the ball as the key focus of the picture. You can see in this picture that the players only have eyes on one thing, and the struggle to get it shows in their faces.