Scottish Women's Football 2012

Glasgow City (orange) VS Murieston Utd (blue/red). 10 June 2012.

Last summer I took my first foray into football photography, by covering a few league matches & an international friendly on behalf of Scottish Women's Football (SWF).
This summer I've been pitch-side again to photograph some relatively high-profile women's matches: The Premier League Cup Final, Second Division League Cup Final, (both games at Recreation Park, Alloa), and a Henson's Scottish Cup 2nd Round match in Livingston.
It has been a really enjoyable experience, and the developments that I've witnessed within the sport over the past year are very promising for its future growth within Scotland.

Hearts (maroon) VS Aberdeen Reserves (white). 20 June 2012. 

For example, many clubs are heavily promoting themselves on social networking sites; there are now a number of quality websites & reporters dedicated to the women's game in Scotland (see related links at bottom); and the mainstream media is slowly but surely getting around to featuring the sport on a bigger scale.
All this combined means that the sport has vastly grown; with bigger audiences, more commercial sponsorship, and a better standard of play on the pitch. But there is a very good reason for this rapid growth.

Glasgow City VS Murieston Utd. 10 June 2012.

Last summer, the Women's World Cup Final in Germany broke the record for most tweeted-about event, and worldwide interest in the sport has since soared.
In Scotland this rising interest was capitalised upon by SWF, which took to Twitter to engage the captive audience with a call-to-action, and soon enough a number of clubs, players, photographers, and reporters, were marketing the game to an ever-growing audience.
This was followed by Glasgow City FC, Scotland's leading women's club, progressing from the Women's Champions League qualifying round, and making it all the way to the last 16, where they were eventually knocked-out by 2x former champions, Turbine Potsdam.
Making this achievement all the more remarkable, is the fact that City (like all Scottish teams) are still an amateur club, with the squad playing around full-time jobs or university studies - whereas many of the Champions League teams were full-time professionals.

Glasgow City VS Spartans. 30 May 2012.

On an international scale too, while the Scotland men's team continue to stumble their way through matches and major qualifying campaigns (now ranked 49th in the world); the women's team are soaring from strength to strength (ranked 21st in the world).
The Scotland women currently sit second in their Euro 2013 qualifying group, behind undefeated leaders France (ranked 6th in the world), and need just one point from their two remaining games to be guaranteed a play-off spot!
If you have any interest at all in Scottish football, I'd really recommend getting yourself along to Tynecastle (Edinburgh) on 19th September to support the Scotland Women in their final Euro 2013 qualifying match against France. It should be a cracking game, and with tickets at only £5/adult (cheaper for kids), it's a real bargain!

Hearts celebrate winning the 2nd Division Cup Final. 20 June 2012.

Further proof of the impact Scottish women are having on the game at international level, include the fact that several players are now playing semi-pro football in the English FA Women's Super League. Meanwhile, Glasgow City's Jane Ross is one of only 3 non-English players selected for the Great Britain Women's Olympic team: And her former teammate, Lisa Evans, has just completed a transfer to Germany's Turbine Potsdam, where she will live her dream as a professional footballer!

Jane Ross (on ball) was recently selected for GB Olympic squad.

Lisa Evans (orange) in one of her last games before turning pro.

Scottish Women's Football is played on a summer season (unlike the men who play the traditional winter season), and has two national leagues (Premier & First Division), along with four regional Second Divisions.
If you need a footballing fix while the men are on holiday, why not give the women's game a shot? You may be pleasantly surprised...


Related links:
Scottish Women's Football (governing body).
SFA: Women's international fixtures.
SWFitba
The Away End
Scotzine.com

Trick photography

I made these trick photos quite a while ago, but never got around to posting them on here, until now.
The images are inspired by the stunning work of Thomas Allen, whose working process & images were featured on my blog a few years ago.

"Injury talk gets [Andy] Murray's back up" (from Scotland on Sunday, May 27, 2012). 

"Leader Luke Donald straddles a dried-up ditch after hitting a water hazard" (from Scotland on Sunday, May 27, 2012).

"Bankfoot" (from Scotland on Sunday, May 27, 2012).

I had almost forgotten about his work until recently, but once I had re-discovered it, I was keen to make some new pictures based upon his style (albeit within a different context).

The images shown above are just a small sample of my recent trick photography work (you can find the others on my facebook page); and while some of them worked really well, I'm not sure that any worked as well as I had originally hoped for - but they were fun to make anyway!

Charles, Prince of Weather

On Thursday, 10 May 2012, Charles, Prince of Wales, became my new favourite weather presenter after giving a very entertaining one-off forecast to the nation on BBC Reporting Scotland: And soon after, he turned into the subject of my latest artwork.

Prince Charles hijacking the Reporting Scotland weather studio.

The special forecast came about during a visit to the BBC Scotland Pacific Quay studios in Glasgow as part of a week-long visit to the country; and soon enough was a viral hit all around the world.
If you were unlucky enough to have missed this TV gold, you can watch it on the BBC website by clicking here, or search for it on YouTube - either way, I doubt you will regret it!

Prince Charles was such a natural in front of the map, that I am pretty sure the regular weather presenters were getting concerned for their job security.
As a result, my wee caricature/cartoon, shows weather regular Stav Danaos trying to wrestle back the clicker thingy from Prince Charles, with Gillian Smart & Christopher Blanchett huddled in the corner bound in ropes, while former weather girl Cat Cubie makes a triumphant return by utilising her circus skills and a hoop in the rafters to come to the rescue.

It was drawn with pencil on A5 paper, and coloured with Photoshop, using a style reminiscent of many classic animations from my time at Edinburgh College of Art.

One week after Prince Charles made his weather debut, I posted the finished picture to my facebook page & profile, where it has proven surprisingly popular, and even received a comment from the one and only Cat Cubie!
As if that wasn't enough, I later discovered that she had shared the picture (and my website) with her near 4000 followers on Twitter, which made my day!

A screenshot of what Cat said on Twitter about my cartoon

Some new work (at long last!)

Hello everybody, sorry for my long absence and lack of updates.

But here's the good news: I've recently re-ignited my creative spark, and occupied myself with a number of new caricature drawings over the past week!

Only a couple of them are completely coloured so far, but you will soon be able to find them all (including "work in progress" images) on my facebook page - please "like" it if you haven't already.

My favourite caricature so far, of 2012 World Snooker Championship finalists Ronnie O'Sullivan & Ali Carter, is embedded below.

I'll add a whole load of in-progress images to the facebook page tomorrow, and hopefully have a load more work posted soon.

Stay tuned, (I promise it won't be as long a wait as last time)!