The Twelfth Man

Celebrating the power and diversity of grassroots sport

The Twelfth Man photography project focuses on regular Londoners, and how the stark contrast of the capital’s landscape provides unique and sometimes unexpected follies for their chosen sport.

Brainchild of designer, Matt Cottis at IYA Studio and created in collaboration with photographer, Dylan Collard, The Twelfth Man captures the wonderfully diverse communities of London, from cricketers in Kennington to swimmers in the Serpentine, in a fresh and captivating way.

You can’t help but be drawn into the lives of these ordinary people committed to doing the sport they love and acknowledge the enduring appeal of grassroots sports in the city. But how did the project come about?

“Cycling around Kennington, seeing the cricket team playing in their full whites surrounded by the hi-res, urban environment felt like such a strong contrast, it sparked the idea to explore sport in the city,” explains Matt.

But like so many great creative lightbulb moments, it was then a chance encounter that got the project off the ground.

“I used to have an office space in a studio in Long Lane,” Dylan recalls. “Matt and his partner Fleur lived in the building behind and I used to see him when we both popped outside for a fag. Matt came to me with the idea for the shoot around the same time I was trying to do more ‘real’ work, rather than the very staged advertising and production heavy projects I’d been doing before. Matt had the interest in sport and I liked the idea of sport being a focus for a project about different communities.”

While the project’s objective was to highlight all the diverse communities in London and show how they bring this vibrant, multi-cultural city to life, there was also a real desire to inspire people to get involved with local communities and sport.

And both Matt and Dylan were inspired themselves, in particular by the Sport for Social Change Network they met as part of the project, a social enterprise working with young people in Lambeth. They were impressed by the work they were doing and the difference they were making to these young people’s lives. The Kennington Cricket Club shoot was another that really captured their imagination.

“We went on a day they were playing quite a high brow team from Kent, who were an all-white, very wealthy and bordering on pro team. They were a huge contrast to the Kennington team of local lads I’d been photographing for a few weeks, who trained in sketchy nets, with the bare minimum of gear but loads of enthusiasm,” explains Dylan. No surprise then, that it was one of these shots that made it into the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait awards and was exhibited at London’s National Portrait Gallery.

To achieve what they wanted with the project, it was important that the shots were natural and genuine, that they had integrity and honesty. As such, the approach to getting the shots also had to be natural, fluid and unplanned.

“It was a very different way of working for me,” says Dylan. “I was used to very well prepped shoots with everything decided and agreed days before the shoot happened. Twelfth Man was much more about going to an area for a walk or to a club to see who we could find. It was about approaching strangers, persuading them to get involved and then seeing what would happen.”

This in itself presented challenges of course, not just in terms of who they would find to photograph and where, but also the practicalities of actually getting the shot. Both recall the difficulties of using the large 1920s Gandolfi camera at the Serpentine.

“It's a huge camera that shoots single 10x8 sheets of film and it’s slow and cumbersome to use, but gets results that are totally unique,” says Dylan. “It means you have to work in a particular way and you have to be sure about what you're doing. Balancing it over the Serpentine with the tripod buried in the water was interesting but it got us some great shots.” www.iyastudio.co.uk /portfolio/twelfth-man

The Twelfth Man captures the commitment and determination that everyday people from all walks of life have for doing the sport they love, despite their surroundings. It undoubtedly has the power to inspire us all to follow our passions, to celebrate the diversity in our capital city and to acknowledge the importance of grassroot sports. It does what it set out to do and does it in a really beautiful way.

Matt Cottis www.iyastudio.co.uk

@iyastudio

Dylan Collard www.dylancollard.com

@dylantcollard