I Admit it – Football is Fun to Shoot

Football isn’t my sport. Or should I say north American football isn’t my sport. I prefer my football of ‘the beautiful game’ variety. I’m a soccer fan.

I understand how the Canadian Football League game, and that of its even popular brother the NFL, is played. I appreciate the skills required. I can appreciate the athleticism needed to play it. I know the amount of effort put into the tactics, by players and coaching staff alike.

But football has too many things working against it to ever hold my interest as a spectator.

There are the 3 minute stoppages in play for television commercial breaks, in my eyes destroying any rhythm or flow to the game. A game can take around two and a half hours to play out despite the fact that it starts with one hour on the clock. That’s an hour and a half of nothing happening – far too much wasted time for me. It’s name even puzzles me – only one or two of the extremely specialized 40 odd players actually use a foot to do anything to the ball. The list goes on. I’m resigned to that fact that I’ll never be a huge fan of the game.

But seen through the eyes of a photographer, the battles on the grid-iron become a different prospect.

The access you get while covering a CFL game is second to none. With most other sports like hockey, baseball and soccer you stake out a shooting position and stick with it for a time. Not so with football.

You’re constantly moving with the play along the sidelines – always trying to anticipate where you’ll get the best shot from. In one minute a photographer might find themselves at the back of an end-zone hoping to get a touchdown photo, the next minute they’re standing next to mammoth sized players on the sideline shooting a midfield interception. Football is often, despite my listed complaints, a fairly decent way for a photographer to spend their day.

I’ll admit that football goes a long way to redeeming itself in my eyes with its access. It’s almost as if as a photographer you’re involved in the action – moving and interacting with the game.

But as is common with many things, great access comes with a certain level of risk.

And I had a close call with that risk during last weekend’s CFL tilt between the Calgary Stampeders and Saskatchewan Roughriders at McMahon Stadium, in which the Stamps destroyed the Riders 40-3.

Below are two photos taken of the moment. The first is the one I took with my wide angle lens as the action got close to the sidelines. The other is of me realizing that they’re getting a little too close for comfort.

The horizon of my photo is tilted – betraying the certain level of, shall we say, anxiety that I felt as I realized how close the boys were getting.

The Stamps player ended up falling and sliding through where I had been kneeling. In the end the only result was a fairly dramatic increase to my blood pressure level that lasted around 30 seconds or so.

I concede, football is fun to shoot – despite the worry sketched across my face.