Gravely Cricket Club visits Bamville

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.

Bamville Cricket Season Start

Harpenden boasts two cricket clubs, the first on Harpenden Common, the second just a short distance beyond East Common, close to the Three Horseshoes Public House. The May 1st match was Bamville’s first of the 2011 season, posted as ‘Players and Jesters’ –  the Abbey Players.

I arrived after the match had begun, and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky, and there was the mildest of breezes. I gathered my gear together, and made my way across towards the clubhouse and pavilion and put up the tripod with gimbal head just short of a shady tree. I spent most of the first half of the Visitors batting shooting from this locations, and with the benefit of the Canon 7D’s greater burst rate than my 5D MkII, was able to capture the ball closer to the bat when shooting the batsmen than on previous occasions.

I was also trying to capture bowlers in exciting stances, ideally with both feet off the ground! I wanted to keep a low viewpoint. but this proved hard for me to get comfortable and Peter Carr very kindly brought me some cushions which eased my back considerably, and eventually I adopted a kneeling position, with breaks to bring them back to life. All the time I was also trying to work out better ways to use the various additions I had made to the tripod and gimbal head system I had created.

During the afternoon the wind slowly gathered momentum, and the sky clouded mistily over, and as I had come with only a shirt, the temperature and windchill gradually got the better of me, and my neck stiffened, but once again Peter came to my rescue and found me a sweater, so I soon began to look a member of the team!

I was pleased to have captured a couple of bails in the air, some floating bowlers and some very energetic running fielders!