Learning from three masters, and a nice compliment!

Whilst shooting for the Manchester Phoenix, I get to work alongside three very talented photographers - Lauren Freeman, Nick Ogden and Richard Murray. I have the most contact with Lauren, we both shoot the warm-ups from on the team bench, and we both get to experiment with shots such as the on-ice 'player entrance' shots (like the one in the main banner for this page). Nick is the Phoenix's official club photographer, his photos have for a long time been a mainstay of the club's match reports, press releases and websites, and Richard is the editor and chief photographer for the match night programmes for both Manchester Phoenix and Cardiff Devils. I think it's safe to say that in my short time shooting for Phoenix, I have learned so much from all three, and for that I am eternally grateful!

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to Richard in one of the intervals, and he was telling me that in all of the years he's shot ice hockey, he's seen so much, but every once in a while he sees a photo that makes him stop and say 'wow'.

Later that evening, I took the chance to head onto the ice and shoot the players as they celebrated the win, and whilst I was there I took this shot of Marcus Kristoffersson leading the victory wave:


Link to Flickr image: Marcus Kristoffersson

A couple of days after the game, Richard sent me an e-mail asking for a couple of shots of Tom Duggan playing the guitar, which I sent through along with the shot of Marcus, just to get his opinion on it. His reply was one I wasn't expecting:
"We talked on Sunday about after 20 years of ice hockey I still see photos and think wow that's good - your photo of Marcus is one of those."
Richard went on to say that he would put the photo into the next match programme. Needless to say, I was quite taken aback!

Fast forward to last Sunday's game against Slough Jets, and I eagerly get my hands on a programme to look for my photo, hoping to find it tucked away in a corner of a page next to a match report. This is what I found:



Richard had given my shots a two-page spread, to accompany the team stats. That's probably the biggest compliment my photos have received, and I'm both honoured and humbled by it!