... just as before, I am struggling to find a suitable way of kicking off my posts on this blog. I am at the AELTC, in Wimbledon, that much I hope is obvious to you. I am seeking inspiration, reaching out for descriptive prose and instead finding the thorny stem of inspiration’s dead-headed rose…
It’s the twelfth, no thirteenth, (oh, I have lost count) time I have taken a seat in this air-conditioned bunker here in the bowels of the Broadcast Centre. The building is nestled amongst a regimental assembly of lawn-like courts, hallowed turf that will turn from a lush green to scuffed scratchy brown over the next couple of weeks under the constant trampling feet of trophy-winning champions and also-rans as they lunge and volley their way to victory or defeat.
We are nearing the end of what we call ‘build week’, seven days of frenetic activity, dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s on one of the most-trafficked sports event sites on the web. Wimbledon, as I have probably said before, waits for no one, an immovable deadline that looms larger and larger, a luminous-bouncy-ball-spitting racquet-swinging purple and green juggernaut, and we will end up flattened on its windscreen if we aren’t on our toes. But we are ready, and so I can finally spend a little time on this blogging endeavour and try to give you a little insight into what goes on behind the scenes, as well as front of house.
I have been out to take a few photos. Every year I find that I need a couple of days to get my eye in, which might sound like a weak excuse for lame photography, but, it really isn’t. Yesterday I strolled round the grounds, looking, hunting, desperately searching for something to shoot. I have to be honest, having been here so many times (and over the last seven or eight years at least) wielding a couple of cameras and all manner of lenses in ten frames a second of flurrying photographic fury, I‘ve found it more and more difficult to find something new, a different angle… what on earth can I focus on this year I wondered as I walked. When I got back to base I found that I hadn’t found an answer to that question, yet. Sure, I had some reasonable photos, but nothing stood out.
Nevertheless I present to you a few of the shots that I have captured on my brief walkabouts. I promise (that may well be rash of me) that as the tournament progresses, so the photos will get better, more compelling, worth clicking on to take a look at. Well, I hope so at least. And I should point out that some of the photos, nay most, are really voucher shots, records of this and that taken as I try to spin some sort of narrative out of it all. You can’t expect to capture everything perfectly.
For me the personal photography element (as opposed to the work one, more of which later) of my time here really starts in earnest next week, when the grounds are smashed alive with the tennis massive, a bobbing weaving armada of ardent fans riding the strawberries and cream tide of the tradition that is Wimbledon. Certainly, the grounds are alive now with the preparative exertions of an army of incumbents that mow, line, scrub, weed, plant, sweep, paint, and dress this most celebrated of venues. It is humming out there. And banging, crashing, the growl of heavy machinery and the occasional thocks (is that similar to an occasional table) of racqueted balls hit by practicing players all mixed by some mad tennis-obsessed DJ… there was even a brief refrain (over the tannoy) from Sir Cliff earlier, and forgive me if I speak out of turn when I say I hope that is the only bit of him I hear this year… but, for me the photo opportunities move a notch or two once the tournament starts and the grounds are the busiest they are all year. In that respect I can’t wait until Monday…
It may seem odd to mention it now, but once we get to Monday then the count down to the moment we all go home again begins. No, I am not one of those people who go on holiday and then spend all the time moaning about the fact that the day to return home again draws ever nearer. I am here to work, it is no holiday, and yet when it is over I will miss it just as if I had spent ten days on a beach or a fortnight on safari. Each day will be full of highs and lows, topped with a fry up for breakfast, and tailed perhaps with just a smidgen of sadness that that is another day ticked off, one less to go…
So what do the next two weeks have in store for us? What can we look forward to, what do we dread, what will test our resolve and turn long days into longer ones? There can only be one answer, and it is The Championships Wimbledon.
The greatest tennis event in the world.
And that’s from someone who is as big a fan of tennis as he is of gardening* ;)
* That might only make sense to those that know me.
It’s the twelfth, no thirteenth, (oh, I have lost count) time I have taken a seat in this air-conditioned bunker here in the bowels of the Broadcast Centre. The building is nestled amongst a regimental assembly of lawn-like courts, hallowed turf that will turn from a lush green to scuffed scratchy brown over the next couple of weeks under the constant trampling feet of trophy-winning champions and also-rans as they lunge and volley their way to victory or defeat.
We are nearing the end of what we call ‘build week’, seven days of frenetic activity, dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s on one of the most-trafficked sports event sites on the web. Wimbledon, as I have probably said before, waits for no one, an immovable deadline that looms larger and larger, a luminous-bouncy-ball-spitting racquet-swinging purple and green juggernaut, and we will end up flattened on its windscreen if we aren’t on our toes. But we are ready, and so I can finally spend a little time on this blogging endeavour and try to give you a little insight into what goes on behind the scenes, as well as front of house.
I have been out to take a few photos. Every year I find that I need a couple of days to get my eye in, which might sound like a weak excuse for lame photography, but, it really isn’t. Yesterday I strolled round the grounds, looking, hunting, desperately searching for something to shoot. I have to be honest, having been here so many times (and over the last seven or eight years at least) wielding a couple of cameras and all manner of lenses in ten frames a second of flurrying photographic fury, I‘ve found it more and more difficult to find something new, a different angle… what on earth can I focus on this year I wondered as I walked. When I got back to base I found that I hadn’t found an answer to that question, yet. Sure, I had some reasonable photos, but nothing stood out.
Nevertheless I present to you a few of the shots that I have captured on my brief walkabouts. I promise (that may well be rash of me) that as the tournament progresses, so the photos will get better, more compelling, worth clicking on to take a look at. Well, I hope so at least. And I should point out that some of the photos, nay most, are really voucher shots, records of this and that taken as I try to spin some sort of narrative out of it all. You can’t expect to capture everything perfectly.
For me the personal photography element (as opposed to the work one, more of which later) of my time here really starts in earnest next week, when the grounds are smashed alive with the tennis massive, a bobbing weaving armada of ardent fans riding the strawberries and cream tide of the tradition that is Wimbledon. Certainly, the grounds are alive now with the preparative exertions of an army of incumbents that mow, line, scrub, weed, plant, sweep, paint, and dress this most celebrated of venues. It is humming out there. And banging, crashing, the growl of heavy machinery and the occasional thocks (is that similar to an occasional table) of racqueted balls hit by practicing players all mixed by some mad tennis-obsessed DJ… there was even a brief refrain (over the tannoy) from Sir Cliff earlier, and forgive me if I speak out of turn when I say I hope that is the only bit of him I hear this year… but, for me the photo opportunities move a notch or two once the tournament starts and the grounds are the busiest they are all year. In that respect I can’t wait until Monday…
It may seem odd to mention it now, but once we get to Monday then the count down to the moment we all go home again begins. No, I am not one of those people who go on holiday and then spend all the time moaning about the fact that the day to return home again draws ever nearer. I am here to work, it is no holiday, and yet when it is over I will miss it just as if I had spent ten days on a beach or a fortnight on safari. Each day will be full of highs and lows, topped with a fry up for breakfast, and tailed perhaps with just a smidgen of sadness that that is another day ticked off, one less to go…
So what do the next two weeks have in store for us? What can we look forward to, what do we dread, what will test our resolve and turn long days into longer ones? There can only be one answer, and it is The Championships Wimbledon.
The greatest tennis event in the world.
And that’s from someone who is as big a fan of tennis as he is of gardening* ;)
* That might only make sense to those that know me.
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