This is Carla, a Police officer from Greater Manchester Police Force, sat on her horse outside the Macron Stadium, Bolton, before the Bolton Wanderers versus Scunthorpe United top of the table clash in the EFL League 1 match.
The conversation that preceded the photo was a tad surreal.
Carla and her fellow officer John were sat on there horses on crowd control duty prior to the match,
I thought the image of the two horses together would make a great picture and nodded at the the officers for approval to take a shot. I got a nod back and took a couple of images of them sat on the horses (see image below).
As I walked towards the officers I thought I might get a stranger shot.
The conversation with John was very interesting, it went something like this...
"Is your name Phil?"
"Yes, it is" (I was a bit puzzled)
"I thought it was, are you a photographer"
"Well only an amateur"
"Harcroft or something like that...you are not from round here"
(where's this going I thought)
"Howcroft, actually and I come from Nottingham, but I am a Wanderers supporter"
"I thought it was you. You took a great Black and White Photo of me a couple of years ago. I was sat on my horse but it was just me. It was a great photo"
"Did I?"
"Yes, you asked me if you could take my photo and I sort of grunted back a yes"
"Oh yes I remember now" (I remembered he was not too keen)
"Yes I googled images of greater manchester police and my picture came up. I'm retiring next year and I would like a copy for my retirement do !"
"Yes that's OK"
"I tried to contact you on Facebook but you didn't reply"
"Well I've only been on Facebook since April, so you probably contacted the wrong Phil Howcroft"
"I thought it was you when I saw you. I've not been back here for two years, so it is Carma that I have met you"
"So how old are you?"
"I'm 55"
"Well I wish I could retire, I'm older than you and still working!"
At that point I give John a card with my contact details and he tells me he will contact me via email for the photo.
This is a 3 way conversation because as I'm chatting with John, both he and myself are also chatting with Carla, as I start explaining my 100 strangers project.
Oh and I'm stood in the middle of two magnificent police horses stroking each one in turn on the nose (nice velvety fur btw)
So I have wrote half a page about my surreal conversation, what about Carla
Well Carla has been a "Police Horse Officer" for seven years and been with her beautiful grey horse Hexham for about 1 year.
Technically it was a difficult shot. Stood between two horses, Carla high above me and the high vis jackets causes tricks with the light and exposure. I chose the shot with Carla looking at John as the best picture of the shoot as the straight on shot had little detail in Carla's eyes as the helmet and visor blocked quite a bit of light. A fill in flash would have maybe upset the horses and caused problems with the high vis.
Edited in Darktable and I think I got the high vis about right.
As for the football, the Wanderers scored a late late winner in the 94th minute, to raise the roof off the stadium (there are 90 minutes in a football match for those of you who don't know) . As the Wanderers played out the last 2 minutes of injury time, I looked around me... people stood up, cheering, big smiles on their faces.... grandparents, grandkids, mothers and fathers with children, teenagers, middle aged, old aged, black , white , mixed race and asian ... football is sometimes a beautiful game.
This picture is number 64 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
https://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/
My own strangers can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57144254@N08/albums/72157657822400168
Thank you Carla for being my stranger 64
John's picture from 2015 !!!
http://365project.org/phil_howcroft/365/2015-01-10
