Sports Photography in Barcelona: American Football Portraits Under Dramatic Skies

This photography assignment focused on Spain’s growing semi-professional American Football league, a sport gaining popularity across Europe yet still relatively uncommon in Barcelona’s sports landscape. The project combined action sports photography with environmental portraits, creating a comprehensive visual story about this unique athletic community.

The team’s British coach led practices at their training ground on Montjuïc, Barcelona’s historic hill that provides a dramatic backdrop for sports photography. This location offers interesting compositional opportunities with the city skyline visible in the distance, adding context to the portraits and establishing a distinct sense of place.

Weather conditions presented significant technical challenges throughout the three-hour session. Persistent rain and drizzle created difficult shooting conditions that would have compromised standard photography equipment. Fortunately, my Olympus E3 camera and professional lenses feature comprehensive weather sealing, allowing continuous shooting in adverse conditions without risking damage to sensitive electronics.

While challenging, the overcast conditions and wet surfaces actually enhanced the visual drama of the portraits. The diffused light minimized harsh shadows on faces beneath helmets—a common problem in sports photography—while the moisture added reflective qualities to the playing surface and equipment.

Despite the weather complications, I remained committed to using multiple flash units to create dimensional lighting for the player portraits. This technical approach required careful equipment protection while maintaining mobility around the field. The combination of controlled flash lighting against the moody ambient background created a cinematic quality in the portraits, emphasizing the intensity and physicality of the sport.

The dramatic contrast between the precisely lit subjects and the atmospheric background elements helped convey the gritty determination of athletes competing in a sport still developing its presence in Spanish sporting culture.

Beyond the portraits, I photographed extensive game action, though I admit that even after hours of observation, the complex rules and strategies of American football remained somewhat mysterious. This experience highlights an important aspect of sports photography: technical understanding of photography often outweighs complete knowledge of the sport itself.

The session reinforced my approach to sports photography—developing the ability to anticipate movement patterns allows photographers to capture decisive moments without relying exclusively on continuous high-speed shooting. This anticipatory technique produces more thoughtful compositions while maintaining the authentic energy of athletic competition.