Phillip Brown has been taking wonderful pictures like the one above for over 20 years and it shows . His ability to catch the moments that best portray the feelings of the players is excellent. In the first picture we see the celebration and reaction of England's Graeme Swann after the match umpire dismisses India's Suresh Raina for being lbw for 0 in the back ground we also see some of his team mates . This was taken during the first cricket test match at Lord's cricket ground in London July 23, 2011. Of course he would have a very good vantage point but the ability to capture the precise moment of the Umpires finger being raised coupled also with keeping Graham Swan in crisp focus show real expertise. That said though the most important thing importantly a passion for Cricket and his job. Below shows a picture of mine of a similar composition. To be able to capture this image I used single metering and focusing to help pinpoint the bowler walking back to his position and of course a wide aperture to keep him as the main subject . I also , as he was turned away from the daylight , in photoshop increased the brightness of his face by using the lasso tool to out line his face thus being able then to adjust that one area of the picture.
Philip Brown has worked as a sports photographer for over twenty years.
He started photographing at his local basketball and rugby league teams in Canberra in the 1980s and from there on his picture were soon attracting clients willing to pay for the photographs. After a trip to the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986 and a photo in Time magazine he moved to Sydney and was soon working for various newspapers and was regularly shooting rugby games for the magazine Rugby League Week.
In 1988 he came to London and was employed by Australian newspapers to cover the 1989 Ashes cricket tour. He then started working regularly for The Daily Telegraph covering all sports including plenty of cricket.
Philip has had thousands of photographs published in newspapers, magazines and books. He has also edited two books of sporting photographs published by Mitchell Beazley. In 2004 he put together a 300 page rugby volume England, Rugby World Champions and the following year produced a similar sized book Cricket, celebrating the modern game around the world.
Above another wonderful example of Brown's excellent ability to capture the best moments in work showing us Rava Bopara's desperate dive to attempt to get back to the safety of his crease before the white ball shown on the right comes flying in and hits his stumps .
Most of Brown's images are cropped to focus on the main action in the picture. This is very important in sports journal photography to do this so the viewer can see and be given a real feel close up of key moments in a game. Also this will of course help to get you image chosen by the newspapers to publish.
Above another wonderful example of Brown's excellent ability to capture the best moments in work showing us Rava Bopara's desperate dive to attempt to get back to the safety of his crease before the white ball shown on the right comes flying in and hits his stumps .
Most of Brown's images are cropped to focus on the main action in the picture. This is very important in sports journal photography to do this so the viewer can see and be given a real feel close up of key moments in a game. Also this will of course help to get you image chosen by the newspapers to publish.
His pictures of the England team can be seen in the Daily papers all throughout the summer months and was recently awarded by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) the inaugural Veuve Clicquot England Cricket Photography Award for his picture of Ravi Bopara. Philip’s winning image of Ravi Bopara shown below was taken during the winter series in the Caribbean. The award is designed to showcase the best in cricket photography and is judged on three main criteria: composition, creativity and technical skill.
You can easily see why this was picked as the winner, the timing and forethought put into capturing this image is wonderful and the letterbox cropping of the picture works really well to highlight the moment.
Above is a shot of mine to compare to Brown's , of course his picture is a one off but this still has a similar feel to it . I feel I was able capture the movement of the game by having the cricket ball slightly in a blur giving it a feel of movement. You can only compare the two by the shape of the images within them, the raised straight arm the bat and the position of the hands .
My picture shown above perhaps works a little better as it shows the ball just after hitting the stumps as well as capturing the bails in mid air . Also this is one of favourites as it was my son who was responsible for this wicket being taken as he was bowling and also as after taking about 50 to 60 pictures I was very lucky enough to capture this image as it was only one of two times during the match when one of the bowlers actually managed to hit the stumps. My image was taken with my Nikon D3100 with my Tamron Zoom lens at about a distance of about 30meters using just a metal railing to steady the camera on and then slightly cropping and adjusting the curves in Photoshop , so all in all I am very pleased with this result.
Phillip uses a Nikon D3 camera as seen below.
Links
http://www.philipbrownphotos.com/
ww.europe-nikon.com/en_GB/local_content/galleries/2009/UK_gallery_philipbrown.page
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