Soccer and Photojournalism: Kindred Spirits

photo by Tom Burton

World Cup has been great to watch with some truly amazing matches. Great players came prepared for the chance of making creative, assertive decisions that make or break the game. In a fraction of a second, they either capture the moment or miss it all together.

Like soccer, photojournalism is a craft of quick reactions and creativity and playing the sport feels a lot like working an assignment.

I’ve been in photojournalism a long time, but soccer is something I’ve some to later, especially playing the game. My kids played growing up and I learned the game that way and helped coach their teams later on. It’s only been the last few years that I’ve laced up cleats and played in weekly pick up games but the more I play, the more I recognize the similarities.

I love the skill of positioning in soccer. When you don’t have the ball and are waiting, you drift into the open position, waiting for a pass. If you’re sneaky, you drift behind a defender who doesn’t see you. It is so much like figuring out the best place to be for a photo, quietly moving into position and then pushing the shutter at the perfect moment. Getting the pass and the clean shot on goal feels just the same.

Being in on a corner kick you are packed in tight, throwing elbows and shoving, you position yourself to get to the ball with perfect timing. It’s the same as being in a media scrum, chasing a celebrity or getting the handshake photo at the end of a football game. You have to guess the right position, move quickly when the opening comes and get the shot in the one moment when it is available.

Crowdsourcing Jupiter

NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, captured this image of Jupiter, showing its distinctive bands. (NASA/JPL/SSI)

There’s celestial excitement brewing because Jupiter has lost a belt. In addition to the famous red spot, Jupiter has two wide stripes that circle the planet and the Southern belt is gone. Apparently this has happened before, but it doesn’t happen often.

A good piece on npr.org explains that the surface of Jupiter is really a big old cloud and that a number of things could change it. They quote Kelly Beatty, senior contributing editor for Sky and Telescope magazine who says they have “some confidence” the belt will be back. He also said amateur astronomers were among the first to see the change.

This quote was especially interesting;

“There aren’t enough professionals to keep track of everything going on in the universe all the time,” Beatty says. “So in a sense, they rely on amateur astronomers — who have very good equipment, by the way — to actually keep an eye on things.”

Wow — professionals relying on enthusiastic, well-equipped citizens to help them gather information. Sounds a little like crowdsourcing, user generated content, citizen journalism or whatever ever catchphrase we use to describe using non-professionals in newsgathering. The difference seems to be that astronomers work with it while journalists fear the consequences.