Tom Jenkins

Biography Tom Jenkins is a sports photographer for The Guardian, and Observer newspapers, having worked for them for over 25 years. He has photographed several of the most well known sporting events in the world, including several of the Football World Cups and Olympic Games. His original ambitions were to become a sportsman himself, but due to his lack of physical ability he wasn’t able to pursue them. Instead, he learned photography during his time at school, where he realised he could instead a sport associated career “from a different angle”. Later he took a Documentary Photography course in Newport, South Wales until 1989. For just under a year he worked as a freelance photographer, before eventually becoming a full time photographer for The Guardian in 1990, as well as The Observer in 1993.

This first image is a low angle mid-shot of the rugby player Johnny Wilkinson at the 2003 Rugby World Cup, entering back into the stadium after winning the final against Australia. Its location in a stadium means that floodlights will have been used, meaning the image uses artificial high key lighting. This then means that the tonal range of the picture is primarily bright colours, such as the white shirt worn by Wilkinson as well as the fans surrounding him. The way that most of those fans are still able to fit in the frame suggests that Jenkins used a wide angled lens with a small aperture, as the depth of field is very large to ensure all of the fans present are in focus.

This image of Ronaldo and Rooney playing for Manchester United is an extreme long shot, as Ronaldo is the main focus of the image, and his entire body is present. Even though Ronaldo is in the centre of the image, the out of focus goalkeeper in the foreground does follow the rule of thirds, his body belonging to the left of the image whereas the ball he is diving for belongs to the top right. Same as the image of Wilkinson, its location in a stadium means that the artificial lighting of flood lights make it a high key lit image. There are several layers to this image, including the foreground with the goalkeeper, the middle ground with Ronaldo and Rooney, and the background of the crowd.

This is a low angled long shot of an athlete training for (supposedly) the Paralympics. Its taking place during the daytime in an open top stadium, meaning its high key lighting is natural. Despite this, the tonal range of the image is still quite large consisting of both the light colours of the athlete’s skin, the stadium in which he’s in and the sky, but also the dark colours of his kit, the running track and his prosthetics. Jenkins will have used a high shutter speed in this image, in order to sharply capture the athlete while he is moving. It is also likely a small aperture was used, as the entire image is in focus thanks to a large depth of field, and also the lack of any overexposure from the sky.

This landscape extreme long shot image is taken from Statford Stadium, ahead of the New Zealand v Namibia match of the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Firstly, the large field of view of this image is a dead giveaway that a wide angle lens was used by Jenkins (or a panorama mode), allowing him to capture the entire length of the stadium in one image. While the centre of the stadium is quite well lit from the artificial lighting of the floodlights, the dark tones of the surrounding crowd mean that it is a primarily low key image. With the entirety of the stadium being in focus, the large depth of field means that a small aperture will have been used by Jenkins.

This is an image of the Rugly World Cup Trophy, taken during the New Zealand v Argentina match at Wembley Stadium. Immediately noticeable is the extremely shallow depth of field in this image. As well as the background being incredibly blurred, the thinnest section of the trophy is also blurred, in order to maintain the image’s focus on the 2011 engraving of New Zealand’s victory, which serves as the image’s resting point. This engraving is clearly visible in the high key lighting used, most likely artificial given the location of Wembley Stadium and its use of floodlights. With the camera’s short distance from the trophy, it is almost certain that Jenkins made use of his camera’s macro mode, allowing him to capture the engraving so sharply.