England vs India - Birmingham University

RAINY EVENING OF FIELD HOCKEY.....

My first ever assignment to cover field hockey, was not favored by the weather as the Birmingham University pitch was hit by the summers hardest downpour. The crowd were forced to peek at the game from underneath their umbrellas - and the players were playing in a water filled field. The game itself was quite entertaining, and fast paced - especially the quickness that the ball hit was something to get used to and many of my shots were left missing the ball. Also the rain was something that made it very difficult to focus the images perfectly, as there was water spraying everywhere and it made the focusing not always hit the 'sweet spot'.

As a sport to photograph - I feel that field hockey was something that I feel could be something that I could easily get to enjoy photographing more in the future. But with the market for sales - I doubt it would be a money-spinner, but the images that you can capture in the game are something that really have something special in them. And the next chance for me to attempt to photograph field hockey - will be on Friday this week, when the teams face each other in the second of the three match series.

For more photos from the games - visit the link to my Zenfolio gallery.

Worcester City - Kidderminster Harriers

Tuesday evening I went to photograph another one of Worcester City FC's pre-season friendly matches, this time against local rivals Kidderminster Harriers.

As I stepped off the train, there was a small group of Kidderminster Harriers' supporters, singing that they hated Worcester. Interesting choice to come and visit a city that they hate ;-)

The game itself was the first time I had photographer at St George's Lane under floodlights.

Initially the lights seemed 'OK' - despite the dark clouds and drizzle I could still keep the ISO to reasonable levels and have good shutter speeds of 1/500 or faster.

But as the game went on, and the light at the ground got gloomier, the real challenge hit me

with the dwindling light I was quickly switching the ISO higher and higher. And before soon I was forced to use ISO 3200 and f2.8 - and was managing with a reasonable shutter-speed of 1/320, which is still OK for football.

Around the half-way point of the second half, the light has reduced to levels that forced me to under expose my images by couple of stops, just to have any chance of catching something. And with the 300mm lens, even if it was on a monopod, you still would prefer speeds to be no less than 1/250 - 1/320 (to avoid the shake).

From the images in the Blog - the top two were taken when the light was getting to it's worse levels. They are slightly dark, but shooting the images in RAW format did allow me to save them a lot more than would have been possible had I been shooting in JPEG.

So, another night of learning the conditions in the English minor league grounds - perhaps in five years time I might get the chance to experience Villa Park or something like it.

How I yearn back to the well light Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland...

Links to the match images : http://googabuphotos.zenfolio.com/p877996799 or at www.xit-images.com

Footballing weekend

Image (top) : Birmingham City Ladies FC vs West Ham - played at King's Lane in Stratford-Upon-Avon on the 26th of July 2009.

© Ville Vuorinen / www.xit-images.com

(This pre-season 'friendly' was far from it - with bloody noses, wind getting knocked out, and plenty of tough challenges. This game offered something for everyone.)

Image (below): Worcester City FC - Solihull Moors-25th July 2009. © Ville Vuorinen/X-it Images

The pre-season of football is getting into full swing in England - and I photographed the matches of Worcester City FC and Birmingham City Ladies FC over the weekend.

Good thing about the weekend games is that they start nice and early during the day, so the light is normally very good for photography. Which was definately the case in Saturday's game Worcester's St George's Lane - where the light was brilliant, most of the time.

With Sunday's games at Stratford-Upon-Avon, the light was slightly poorer with the heavy rain-clouds hanging over King's Lane.

Photographing games for a certain team presents its own challenges, as mostly they will want images of their team attacking. With the bright sunshine, it is very difficult (sometimes impossible) to keep photographing into the sun. So, for one half of the match you will be mainly photographing the mid-field and defense. Which of course is nice for the fans, who can therefore also see images of the defenders, and of course sometimes a nice sliding tackle by your favorite defender is the 'different' image that you want to capture.

Another challenge that the lower league/women's football will be offering during the winter, will be the quality of flood-lights at the grounds. With the lack of resources (in the current financial climate) I am sure it will be a huge challenge to capture the games in mid-November gloom at 9pm. But, it would be boring if photography would always be hassle and challenge free :-)

Photos from the three games (Birmingham City Ladies and West Ham played first teams and reserves) can be seen in my web-galleries at :

http://googabuphotos.zenfolio.com/ (this gallery displays the images in max. 1100 pixels on long side and has a large watermark. It is also slightly faster than the other gallery.)

The other site where to view the images is :

http://xit-images.com (over here go to the 'Featured Galleries' - where the latest images are on display. This gallery shows images in max. 1500 pixels on the long side and does not have a water mark. Due to this being a Flash-site, the loading of this is a little slow on any but the fastest connections.)

The Beginning

Hello!

With the changes in many aspects of work - and personal life. I thought to open my Blog, to accompany my new website - as the Blog will allow me to write more in detail about various aspects of the photography, that would otherwise seem out of place at the photo-site.

The Blog will not only be used to 'promote' the photography site, but will also share information about other aspects of my work and life in general.

I hope that some of you will find useful information on these pages - and that you will enjoy my little ramblings.

X-it