It's a team effort

As I have said many times here on the GBP Blog, the clients we work with aren't always of the 'shirt and tie' variety. One of the greatest joys of what we do is the range of assignments we undertake. For example, one day I could be on the beach shooting informal portraits, the next I might be thirty metres up in the sky perched on a crane and swaying in the breeze. As I said in yesterday's post, indoor work is all well and good, but give us half a chance to get out of the office and into the fresh air with our clients and we'll take it.

Another quick example from last month, then, which saw me working with a local football club one Sunday morning. Nothing too challenging or remarkable about the job itself, but a prime example of the need for simple yet effective pictures which could be used widely in all manner of marketing activities.

We were very lucky with the weather on this occasion - blue sky, puffy white clouds - all of which worked very well with the team's freshly-washed, colourful kit. In terms of a 'shot list', we had already outlined three sets of images to capture during our time together - team shots (as a whole), player profiles (individuals) and supportive imagery (game action). As is often the case, organisation was the key here; I turned up early in order to meet my contact and make introductions with the team, and the players themselves were already in place, warming up. It was then simply a case of getting everyone into position for the first 'group' shot, followed by individual portraits in quick succession.

Given that all anyone there really wanted to do was play football (i.e. not stand around being photographed!), I kept things very simple. Setting up two cameras - one for the portrait stuff, the other for the action - the D2H was again brought out of the bag for the latter, making the most of its ability to capture the fast-paced action. On this occasion, I seem to recall, it was set to a rate of 4 frames per second and I shot in bursts of 2 frames in succession.

The resulting images from the hour or so that I spent on the sidelines have since been used on the team's website and in the local press, with plans to use them further in newsletters and printed promotional matter.