For the love of the game: Shooting grassroots football on a Canon EOS-1D X Mark III

Canon Ambassador Eddie Keogh makes his living shooting professional sport at the highest level, both as the official photographer for the England football team and covering Premier League football, international rugby and other top sporting events. Yet when he's not doing his day job, there's nothing he enjoys more than photographing amateur footballers.

Eddie's lighthearted and affectionate pictures of the English Sunday league celebrate the passion and dedication of the men and women who play grassroots football week after week, purely for the love of the game. "It isn't about action pictures," says Eddie. "That's the last thing I'm interested in for this project – unless it's an unusual action picture. I want to tell the story of Sunday morning football – the quirkiness and the camaraderie. It's about the social side, the changing rooms, the mud, the wonky goalposts, the team talks. I always enjoy seeing the funny side of life, and I like to get pictures that raise an eyebrow or a smile."

Eddie has been a keen footballer since childhood, and learned many of his skills photographing local matches as a teenager. But after a 35-year career shooting sport at the highest level, what has driven him to give up his spare time to stand in muddy fields, braving wind and rain, to photograph local teams?

When his pro sports work has allowed, Eddie has continued returning to Hackney Marshes. More than half of his project has been shot there, along with images at other Sunday league grounds around the UK. Describing his project as still very much a work-in-progress, Eddie is not expecting to exhibit or publish it for some time, although it has already won accolades, including scooping the Away from the Action category at the 2019 British Sports Journalism Awards.

He's shot a range of subjects, from a forlorn goalkeeper retrieving the ball from the back of the net, to players' mud-covered legs in the dressing room and a dog with a burst football in its mouth. However, one that stands out as a personal favourite is a shot of players on a misty morning (top).

"I was covering a Premier League match at Southampton at 4pm and worked out I'd still have time to go to a local game in the area first," he says. "The players were almost silhouettes in the mist. To me it looks like it could be a picture from the 1940s or '50s, because you can't see the trendy coloured boots the players are wearing. Sometimes a picture just has a certain atmosphere – it's difficult to explain why it works, but you just look at it and think, 'That looks right'. I was lucky to get it.'"

"Lens-wise, I don't need longer focal lengths for the Sunday league pictures as I'm generally shooting wider. On occasion I might also use the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III IS USM lens. I avoid taking a lot of gear as I don't want to stand out too much. It's nice to just look like a guy with a camera."

Although Eddie prefers working incognito, having a DSLR does sometimes get him noticed by the players. "Once I was asked to shoot a team photo after a game," he recalls. "I got them together and was organising the group to make it look good and they said, 'You're taking it a bit seriously'.

"I said, 'Believe it or not, you've got the England team photographer taking your photo'. They couldn't stop laughing. They thought it was hilarious that this bloke wandering around the park with a camera turned out to be the England team photographer."

The creative opportunities of shooting amateur sport

With years of experience shooting professional and amateur football, Eddie continues to find enjoyment in both. "I really like working with England, it's a very interesting job," he says. "I've spent most of my life on the outside, looking in, but now I'm very much part of the team – on the inside, looking out. When I'm shooting Premier League football, however, I can only shoot from certain places; you can't move and there are stewards in your way a lot of the time.

"With park football, I can go where I want. It's lovely to bring the skills I've learned over 35 years of shooting football back to where I started, because I see a lot more now. I see pictures more easily and I have no constraints. If the light changes I can move to where it is best. It's really nice to be able to shoot the angles I can't on a Premier League game. I can also get up close and personal with the guys doing a team talk at half-time, or ask permission to shoot in the changing rooms. It definitely allows me to be more creative."

Eddie advises aspiring sports photographers to hone their skills at an amateur level. "I get a lot of people asking me how to improve, and I always recommend they go and shoot whatever their local sport is, whether that's football, rugby or hockey," he says. "The most important thing is to keep on doing it. Go along, take the pictures, go through the edit and learn how to do it better. Then go back again the next weekend and do it again. The more you shoot, the more you'll improve."