Luck of the draw?

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driver_wedge

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Shane
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Do you guys ever have to think long and hard about which end of the pitch to shoot at football, rugby, or whatever..? Perhaps some are commissioned to follow a particular team?

As a Swansea City football season ticket holder I always try to get a good look at the equipment used by the official match togs. There's been an obvious increase in them this season now that they're in the Premier League...happy days!

Last Sunday against Arsenal I couldn't help but notice that most (if not all) were shooting from behind the goal Arsenal were playing towards in the first half and there was at least three remote cameras behind the goal. At half time, togs and all remote cameras disappeared up to the other end but missed what was arguably the most notable action. I presume they'd rather have been down the other end when the best action was taking place? Were any of you there??

A helpful bit of advice for shooting at the Liberty Stadium when the Swans are playing the 'big boys' - don't just follow the said 'big boys'... ;) In jest of course!
 
On nowhere near the same same scale as Premiership football, I try and get to one of my local rugby club's home games.

The only real purpose is to provide images for the club itself (although they are usually used in local press too). My Bro-in-law plays for the team and his Dad is now a major sponsor and also played for the club too.

I normally try and get myself at the end the home side are attacking as this tends to make for better photos. If they are taking a bit of a hammering I may move to the sideline but my logic is, as the pictures are pretty much exclusively for the club, they wont want to be staring at their own back-sides :lol:

From your example, I suppose the real money will be for pictures of the winning team and pre-match Arsenal would have been favourites (although it hurts to type that as a Spurs supporter :lol: )

Given the result, those that gambled on Arsenal winning dipped out on that occasion but I suppose if I were lucky enough to be in that situation I'd want the team most likely to win to be running towards me.
 
depends on who people work for to be honest and who they follow

some people will have specifc teams to follow, others may opt to follow a team on form, some agencies/papers send 2/3 togs along and cover teams with one snapper at one end and two at the other.

having worked as a runner for them at premiership games alot are different int he re coverage simply due to who they are covering for / what the needs of the agency/paper they work for
 
I once shot a game at derby (against Wimbledon I think - it was quite a while back in early premiership days!) and derby were dominating. I was the only tog from my agency but got a gut feeling Wimbledon were going to score and nobody was covering their attacking end. I started packing up to change ends and got that much stick off the other shooters saw sense and stayed with the derby attack.
Result? Wimbledon scored and won and we all got the same celebration pics from 100 yards away!
 
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Where to sit is undoubtably the most frustrating and nerve wracking decision involved in the whole football photography thing in my opinion.

I wrote a blog post about it including my logic that I use for a game. For Premiership football shooting positions are a lot more restricted so choice is more limited. Often I go to the opposite end to the majority for precisely the reason you pointed out.

Blog post here...

http://slikimages.com/2010/09/techniques/which-end-to-shoot-from/
 
I've given up trying to predict games, be they Premier League or Northern League. I found that almost every time I tried to be intelligent about my choice it would tend to back-fire and leave me high and dry so now I just sit where I feel most comfortable (asking similar questions to some of those in Tobers article above) and see what happens. It also helps that being at the wrong end isn't always a complete disaster, sometimes you can get a better perspective on a goal/cele' and crop it to quite a useable level.

The only exception is when I've actually been sent to the game to cover a particular team, in which case I'll follow that team, obviously.
 
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You can guarantee that if I stand behind the posts with my team attacking at rugby, all the play will be down the other end!

Football, I'm with a team so tend to stand with them attacking towards me. Again the same with if I stand behind the goal, I see no action whatsoever!

But it's both very low league stuff so I can stand pretty much where I like
 
kelack said:
You can guarantee that if I stand behind the posts with my team attacking at rugby, all the play will be down the other end!

Football, I'm with a team so tend to stand with them attacking towards me. Again the same with if I stand behind the goal, I see no action whatsoever!

But it's both very low league stuff so I can stand pretty much where I like
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You shouldn't be standing anywhere.... tsk :)
 
You pair of pedantic so and so's :lol::lol::p:lol::lol:

ok, replace stand with sit (although until I get my decent stool, I am standing, can't crouch because of my hip and my small stool is too low)

and replace behind posts with in between corner flag and posts. I was just lazy typing :p

and you both know exactly what I meant

:lol:
 
kelack said:
and you both know exactly what I meant

:lol:
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hence my smiley.. however a newbie wouldn't know.. and like it or not as a moderator a newbie will percieve you to be the font of all knowledge and take what you say as proper...
 
:lol: have you seen some of the moderators!

But seriously, yes, I suppose when you put it like that.

Oh dear, font of all knowledge? Goodness help us all :lol:
 
kelack said:
:lol: have you seen some of the moderators!

But seriously, yes, I suppose when you put it like that.

Oh dear, font of all knowledge? Goodness help us all :lol:
Click to expand...

its a cross you have to bear :) its stupid... people with thousands of posts are also seen as more knowledgeable.. yet it could have been thousands of stupid questions...its a perception unfortunatly..
 
You've read my posts then :lol: ;)
 
:naughty: don't tempt the admins :D
 
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