Champions League Final 2015
On 6th June 2015, the UEFA Champions League Final was played in Berlin's Olympiastadion. Barcelona and Juventus were the teams playing and when thousands of their fans arrived, I joined them in the fanfest locations around the city to take some pictures which I offered as free, high quality downloads from the berlininfocus website.
The Olympiastadion was built for the 1936 Olympics and it's still more or less the original building since it suffered little damage during the war. Of course it's been renovated a few times and now has a capacity of almost 75,000, making it the largest all-seater stadium in Germany. It hosted the 2006 World Cup final and the DFB-Pokal final is played here every year.
Hertha Berlin currently use it as their home ground although not without debate. Unless Bayern Munich are visiting, it's never close to full for a Hertha game. The hardcore fans in the Ostkurve do their best to generate an atmosphere but it still feels slightly vacant and the athletics track surrounding the pitch distances the crowd from the game. It's a beautiful stadium but perhaps a bit too big for Hertha.
Sadly, even their most ardent fans would have to admit Hertha are just a touch short of Europe's elite at the moment. For today's game I'd have to content myself being host and temporarily bestow my seat to one of our Spanish or Italian guests.
The city did a great job of welcoming the fans. Alexanderplatz was the designated area for Juventus supporters to hangout before the match, while their Barcelona counterparts were over in Breitscheidplatz by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The stadium's carpark was transformed into a fanfest area where both sets of fans were happily partying together in the sunshine. Perhaps they found the German beer on offer slightly superior to what they're used to.
Conditions were quite tricky for photography. It was a bright, sunny day with an almost cloudless sky, so the light was harsh and cast strong shadows. Not good for portraits but the hot afternoon meant football shirts were proudly on display and the two team's colours were predominant everywhere you looked.
A lot of the time I was shooting directly into the sun so I would have to expose for the posing fans and let the background highlights blow out. If I'd metered for the whole scene they would only appear as backlit silhouettes in the photos, with virtually no detail. Shooting away from the sun introduced a new challenge - keeping my own shadow out of the shot.
Using flash however, which is the saviour in a situation like this, gave me the option of metering for the ambient light and still being able to exposure the subjects correctly. Ideally I would have used a reflector to bounce light back onto their faces, but this was a one man, mobile operation so I had to limit my accessory count. I only took one flashgun which I covered with a portable softbox to soften the effect of the flash.
If I wasn't pointing toward the sun, I was able to keep the shutter speed slower than my camera's maximum flash sync speed, but partying football fans are not the easiest subjects to direct! Having said that, many were very keen to pose for me and obediently moved to where I suggested, so I hope they were all happy with their photos.
It was fun day and a great way to be involved in one of football's biggest occasions while I continue to wait patiently for Hertha Berlin's arrival on the European stage. I did have one advantage over the ticketless, travelling fans though. I was able to make it home in time to watch the game on TV.
