Mark Leech: 40+ years of capturing football's finest goals, fights and finals
- Josh Schneider-Weiler
- Sep 18, 2017
- 2 min read
Our guest today is one of the best photographers covering football, Mark Leech. Leech has been capturing football moments for more than 40 years.
He started working for himself in 1977 and having kept most of his archived images, formed his own photography company, Well Offside in 2001. In 2012, he was awarded the Barclays Photographer of the first 20 Seasons for his work in the Premier League, and he has covered some of the most legendary games in the FA Cup, World Cup, and Champions League.
In our episode Leech reminisces, and discusses: the worrying trends he sees in sports photography, his memories of England v. Argentina in 1998, witnessing the horrifying scenes in Heysel in 1985, how sports photographers operated 40 years ago, his keys to capturing a goal and being on the field with hooligans in the 1980 Scottish cup final with Celtic and Rangers.
You can follow Mark on twitter @Len_Scap and see his photos on www.welloffside.com
References
Timeline
Capturing the character of a person 2:46
The first football photograph that engrossed him 9:00
Early challenges in photography 11:50
An early embarrassing moment that changed his career 16:00
His memories of the 1998 England vs. Argentina 23:25
Trying to focus while photographing his favorite team 28:30
Being late for a game yet being on time 33:05
Keys to capturing a goal 36:50
Hooligans and the Scottish cup final 41:55
Heysel catastrophe in 1985 45:44
Major turning points in sports photography in last 20 years 54:35
His favorite photographers 1:03:40
Bobby Robson on a camel 1:09:30
The title of his autobiography 1:15:30
Comments