I went to Peterborough on Sunday, with my mate Bill, to watch Bolton Wanderers play Peterborough United. Sixty something miles from Nottingham.
I thought it would be a good location for a stranger shot too, as my football matches provide quite a few opportunities for strangers.
It was my first visit to Peterborough United, so it was a new ground to tick off on my list of away grounds.
Being a new ground, we walked around the ground taking in the architecture of the stadium, two new modern stands and two "old school" stands.
While admiring some of the new stands I spotted Sarah outside the turnstiles for the "home supporters", Sarah is a Peterborough United match day steward.
I had my camera in hand and approached Sarah. I think she thought I was a home supporter. I smiled and told her I was a Wanderers supporter and was admiring the stadium design.
We had a bit of banter about me supporting Bolton and then I told her about my 100 strangers project and asked her if she would be part of my project.
Sarah was really enthusiastic about taking part. It was a bright sunny morning (12.15 kick off !!) so I asked Sarah if she would stand in the shadow of one of the new stands as this would make a better shot.
I took about 6 shots as Sarah had moved away from her post and I did not want to take her away from her duties.
Sarah has been a steward for about 5 years and this season was her first year doing outside turnstile duties. I asked Sarah if she was a student. I don't really know why I asked her that, I think it was because she looked young and I thought it might be a weekend job for her. Sarah said she was too old to be a student and worked full time.
I showed Sarah the images on the back of my camera and I asked her if she wanted me to send her some copies. Sarah said yes she would like a copy and be sure to send a link to my Flickr site so she could have a look at the rest of my photos and strangers :)
It was a really nice meeting with Sarah. Peterborough United have a really good steward, a friendly and helpful face of the club.
As for the match, Bolton's 6 match winning streak came to an abrupt end as Peterborough scored with what was their only shot on target (well according to my stats). Bolton were poor, Bill and myself had a good moan about the Wanderers performance as we drove back to Nottingham.
Edited in Darktable. There is a big piece of Sara's hair across the frame, but I left that in the shot as it was too difficult to clone out for my editing skills !
This picture is number 54 in my 100 strangers project. Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
100 Strangers Flickr Group page
https://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/
My own strangers can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57144254@N08/albums/72157657822400168
(The cloning looks quite straightforward but it would be fiddly and time-consuming.)