This is my second stranger from the Peterborough United versus Bolton Wanderers football match.
My previous stranger, Sarah, was stewarding the home fans and as Bill and myself made our way towards our "visitors turnstiles" I spotted Walter in his high vis orange jacket stood near to the modern blue frontage of the "Motorpoint Stand". Having seen the potential of a fabulous blue background and orange high vis, I knew I had to photograph Walter.
I approached Walter, camera in hand and told him about my 100 strangers project.
"So having heard about my project, would you let me photography you?"
"Yes that's alright" said Walter with a wry smile.
"Is that an Australian accent I can hear"
"No !!", Walter shakes his head
"Ahhh, South African then?"
"Yes that's right"
"So what's a South African doing in the UK"
"Working !!!"
"Oh yes", I said
"So how long have you been stewarding?"
"I'm not a steward"
"Oh right, so what are you?"
"I'm part of the Incident Response Team"
"Incident Response Team. So what does the incident response team do?"
"We provide backup to the police if there is an incident"
"Oh right"
By that, I assumed that Walter got involved if there was any trouble inside or outside the ground.
I think Walter had a very quite afternoon as the 484 Wanderers fans were very well behaved. We normally take bigger away followings, but a Sunday 12.15 kick off time for a match televised live by Sky TV meant the following was considerably smaller than normal.
I saw Walter inside the stadium in the second half, I tried to catch his eye and give him a wave as he asked a Wanderers fan to take his feet off the seats in front of him.
As you can see from the photo the backdrop and high vis jacket combo, combined with Walters smile make for a striking stranger portrait.
I exchanged emails with Walter and will send him a copy of the image.
Thanks for being stranger 55 Walter,
Worth viewing large if you have the time :)
This picture is number 55 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
