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B+W4 ICONS AND MORTALS
3 THE BUILD-UP
5 SIGNS AND SYMBOLS
Around all football venues are both pop-
up and street shops vying for the fans’
attention. Merchandising and catering are
the big two attractions in the walk up to
the ground, so see if you can capture the
carnival-like graphics and advertising on
show. Fan food around the grounds these
days is as cosmopolitan as any city centre,
but there are still the traditional hot dog
stands and burger trailers, some of which
have plied their trade for years. If you can’t
find any historic or vintage stalls, see if
you can spot anything humorous, like this
comical and almost certainly unofficial
product endorsement.
45Many of the bigger clubs have cottoned on
to the marketing potential of their playing
staff, both current stars and legends
from the past. As such, many grounds
have enormous photographs of iconic
players that can dwarf the public passing
underneath. Keep a look out for these
gigantic images and see if you can use
them as a background in your photographs.
Photographer Markéta Luskacová framed
similar images during her sensitive studies
of London’s Brick Lane market community
using enormous images of billboard
advertising as a background to her poignant
pictures of market traders. Here I’ve spotted
the piercing stare of a giant Roberto Firmino
poster behind a fan checking his messages.
Look for contrasts and play with scale if you
can. Use a longer 50 or 80mm lens to create
a flatter, foreshortening effect.
In many ways the build-up to the match is
the most fascinating. Ken Grant’s wonderful
photobook A Topical Times for These Times
is a portrait of fan and amateur football
culture on Merseyside and is a testament to
photography’s ability to record fan behaviour.
The pre-match atmosphere doesn’t just
involve football, but eating, drinking and
betting too. See if you can capture al fresco
dining, like this example of what looked like
the tastiest burger ever made; food on the
move or the mile-long queues outside fish
and chip shops.
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