Scenes from a Bike - Edition 24 -VFL Football - North Melbourne Vs GWS
Welcome to The 22nd edition of the series - Scenes from a bike
This Edition facts:
Location: We are back at the home of the North Melbourne AFL club, Arden Street Oval in, Well North Melbourne, Australia. We are here to watch some Aussie Rules Football, and in particular the VFL (Which are one step down from the elite level) game between North Melbourne (in Blue and White) and GWS (Greater Western Sydney in Grey)
Date & Weather: Sunday the 11th of June - Typical Melbourne Winter, 11 degrees, patchy clouds and low warm sun when it appears.
Equipment: My Fujifilm X-T5, mated with a 70-300mm Zoom - A football oval is large, about 160m long and 130 metres wide, The action is in 360 degrees (a little like Ice hockey, but slower and a much much bigger field) so it's a very difficult sport to shot, Sometimes I use the digital tele-converter (1.4X and 2X) sometimes not.
The Concept & Finances: The concept is simple, I've bought an electric bike, on this bike I explore my hometown, Melbourne Australia and take photos, Priority 1 - Finding new places in Melbourne, Priority 2 - taking better photos, Bonus - Earn back the cost of the bike by creating content and getting paid for it on HIVE. The bike cost $1,100 USD. So far I've earned $141.65 from the previous 23 paid out posts meaning I've paid for just under 13% of the bike and I have $962 to go. This is going to take some time, but this is all bonus money, the joy is in the taking of photos.
Other stuff: It's so hard to explain Aussie rules football to someone who has seen it, it's chaotic, it's played on a huge field, there are 18 people on each team on the ground at any one time. If you are North American think Ice Hockey if you are European, Handball is sort of similar.
I've never really worked out how to shoot it - it's really tough, today we are concentrating on sequences of shots that explain something
Sequence 1
Leek Aleer (Number 21 for GWS) gets up there, but way to early, leaving it to travel over the back to Sam Tucker (Number 51) for North
Sequence 2
Jason McCormack (84) for North kicks the ball off the ground out the the pack through for a goal and the goal umpire looks on intently
Sequence 3
It's Marking time again. There is a concept in Aussie Rules of the 'Speccy' or spectacular mark (you can think of that a catching a ball which has been kicked by someone else) What I like about this sequence is that the pack forms you can see Curtis Taylor (5) and Sam Lowson (60) both eyeing off the mark coming from different angles, but who is going to get it?
Sam Lowson Obviously.
Sequence 4
And here is where it goes wrong. This is Jackson Archer, her has gone for the 'Speccy' way to soon, he will be falling to the ground before the ball is even in frame, leaving a easy mark for those who read the flight of the ball better.
Sequence 5
This is Sam Lowson again, he has likely marked it or got a free kick and is kicking for goal from
about 50 metres out, the blue line behind his is the 50 metres arc, this is a picture of concertation and then happiness which I quite like. I should mention that North won the game quite easily - final score North 14 goals, 12 behinds 98 points to GWS 6 goals 8 behinds 44 points.
And finally, just some nice individual shots
Ruck contests always look majestic - this is how we restart the game after a goal - think jumpball in Basketball
Pointing is a large part of Aussie rules, with such a big field positioning yourself is important, this is Daniel Howe - one of the regular AFL team who has been demoted this week
This is Robert Hansen Junior, he is a brand new recruit for North, he's been with the club for 11 days and this is his first game, he is kicking in general play into the forward line, hopefully for someone to mark and then kick a goal.
And this shot, this is Kallan Dawson and this a a classic Aussie Rule Football pose.
