Energy Drinks

Today is a match day! We are playing Ross County tonight with a 7:45 kick off...
Now some people will think photographers just turn up 5 mins before the game sit, enjoy the game then go home after it... soooo wrong ;)

Now dont get me wrong, i absolutely love what i do!! Football is a passion, and being able to earn a living following such a passion and working in the football environment is quite simply "the best." However to give people an idea of how my footballing "shift" works here it goes...

I`ll arrive at the ground, generally 90mins-2hours before kick off, i`ll find out about any mascots or sponsors involved in the game. If theres mascots i`ll walk out onto the pitch at the same time as the team, and photograph the child, with the team captains, referee and mascot. Similarly with match sponsors post match i will photograph a presentation of champagne and match shirts/balls to companies sponsoring players/games/match balls etc.

Once in the press room, i`ll unpack all my kit, ready to work with, set up the laptop and get changed, if i need my waterproofs (and up here in scotland thats alot!!)

As Kick off approaches i`ll go trackside and get to work, If there are players making there first appearance, or perhaps returning to there former club i`m always on the look out for the banter between former team mates. Similarly at "my club" Dunfermline Athletic, our club Mascot is always milling about, getting into mischief, and making himself know for many a photo-op.

I wont bore you with any details of the game itself, but at Half time all the photographers converge back into the press room, and like many others i will wire in any photos (specifically goals and celebrations) to the agency i work for. In this industry every second counts to get your images sold! If a rival agency gets there images online before you the chances of your work getting bought by a paper are slim...as they say- you snooze you loose!

Back into the Second half, photograph that, then the players/managers reactions as they head off the pitch and then the chaos begins! A mad dash back to the press room to upload and wire in your match edits to the agency! We generally have an hour from the end of the game to edit then upload the rest of the photos! Like before, you snooze- you loose! During this time, and being the clubs official photographer, i often have to disappear and take the man of the match photo, then back to the press room to finish of the rest of the pictures, and pray the papers chose my images over my rivals!

So thats about it for my footballing day! Back to todays actual blip (if your still reading that is) Its some red bull, something i`m going to need to keep going tonight ;) yeah i could have just had this little paragraph, but that would have been too easy ;)

Craig.