The Sunday was far too hot to be inside, so initially I headed for Childwickbury (pronounced as if there was a double ‘d’ and a silent ‘w’), just south of Harpenden as I had been led to believe the wildlife was worth a visit, however, I did not take into account that an Art Fair was being held there, making the park somewhat inaccessible for my plans, so I soon came back out of the grounds and thought I would take a look at Bamville Cricket ground in case they were playing at home. At first I saw little activity, and was about to move off when I caught sight of Peter Carr, and realised that I was early enough for the start. The visitors this day were a team from Gravely.
At this time there were still golfers wheeling their caddies across what would become the pitch, so I took a good long long look before proceeding across the sward, heading for the pavilion. I ascertained that there was indeed going to be a match, and so I retraced my steps to my car and put the 100 - 400mm lens on the 7D, and put the 24-105mm on the 5D MkII, and returned and was promptly offered a drink, which I speedily accepted.
For once I was able to capture the coin-toss between the two team captains, with the pavilion in the background and a few shots of the erection of the sight-screens. Not being a cricketer, nor a cricket photographer, I shoot really to test my skills at timing, and trying to vary the viewpoints which often means that I can find myself at the wrong end for some of the action as each over changes ends. Ideally I need to be the other end alternately, but that is rarely possible, and on a hot steamy day definitely not an option!
I tried to shoot bursts on this occasion, but still twice missed the best shots by lifting off too soon. This meant I did a lot of ‘chimping’ and deleting straightway to avoid the burden of too much culling back at the computer. This could also result in lost moments, so I am still very much learning how to tackle this sort of work efficiently. Often I wanted to shoot both the bowler’s delivery and the batsman’s response, and this makes focussing accurately an issue.
But I persevere, and they do say practice makes perfect.
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