Chris Ashton, Leicester Tigers vs Northampton Saints, October 2009
I do like shooting at Welford Road despite the pain of the floodlights causing a yellow cast on my photos. The staff are really helpful and the local photographers very welcoming. The media team had set up a special area in front of the club house for the photographers and even better we could stand up as there were no seats behind us. And it was the perfect place to be as Saints had clearly got a game plan to attack Tigers’ wing on that side of the pitch. It worked like a treat as Chris Ashton made one try for Christian Day and scored one himself. But for two mistakes, Saints could have won that match despite being dominated up front. Roger Wilson rescued so much ball from the back of the scrum he deserved a medal. My MoM was Bruce Reihana – he is having a wonderful season. It doesn’t matter where the coaches put him in the back three he’s secure in defence and so creative in attack. (He has to get a new contract IMHO).
On the photography front, I managed to secure a much better selection of images than I did at last year’s match. The 70-200mm worked well though it would have been really useful to have a longer lens for the midfield clashes. The D3 is really working well this season – it tracks the plays so accurately and as a result I am getting some superb images such as the one at the top of this blog.
The LV= Anglo-Welsh Cup has started and I have no idea how it works – in fact the rules of the competition are so arcane, I can’t actually describe them! Saints got off to a winning start in Wales against Ospreys – I missed the match as Essex to Wales and back on a Thursday night just wasn’t feasible. Congratuations to James Cannon for his try – the second row club are doing rather nicely at the moment!
My invite to GoogleWave arrived this week – what fun! Real time collaborating is going to be very interesting – I like the way two people can work on the same ‘wave’ at the same time. In fact, more than two could but I don’t have that many friends at the moment! As a photographer, I can see real opportunities if the copyright Google insists on is fair – being able to share images through multiple channels from one place would be really useful. It will be interesting to see how this tool evolves.
Next up for me is the match against Sarries in the incomprehensible LV= Cup… let’s hope it’s a blue bib and some sunshine! Meanwhile the rest of the photos from the Leicester match can be found ‘ere…
