Who's Missing Sport?

Who’s Missing Sport? I sure am.

It’s been a surreal time these last few months in Australia, not to mention the rest of the world where in many places the virus has hit much harder and lockdowns more severe. My heart goes out to all those affected.

A woman wearing a facemasks waits for a tram in the CBD during COVID 19 on 12 April, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Dave Hewison/Speed Media)

Thankfully, our state and federal governments are in the process of easing restrictions which is great for everyone, not only for our sanity, but for our financial wellbeing too. Sport on the other hand is slow to return. Limited by the number of fans allowed to attend, AFL is resuming, so is the NRL and of course most local motorsport events too. Sadly, the Australian MotoGP which was to run in October this year, was cancelled. Here’s hoping it returns for 2021! As a Sports Photographer, I have found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands which brings me to the reason for this blog post.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – MAY 04: A woman wears a face mask in the CBD during COVID 19 on 4 May, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Dave Hewison/Speed Media)

In 2019, I joined a small photo agency called Speed Media Image Agency based in Sydney and specialize in Sport and Red Carpet. It’s been an amazing journey since then as they’ve had me shoot the Boxing Day Test, T20 Cricket and BBL. When sport returns, I will be covering the Super Rugby, Super Netball, Cricket, World Superbikes as well as any celebrity events in Melbourne as they happen.

As always, I will be covering the Australian Formula 1 and MotoGP next year with Alamy Live News.

Thanks to my work with Speed Media, an agency in New Zealand called PhotoSport, has picked me up to shoot the NRL, particularly games with the NZ Warriors playing as they are the official team photographers. If all goes well, my first assignment with them is in two weeks on the 26th June for the Storm v Warriors game at AAMI Park. All sporting codes have reduced media so it’s a bit touch and go whether my credentials will be approved, I can only hope!

So, in the coming weeks and months I’ll be blogging more, adding more sports photos and posting much more sport related media on my Facebook page, if you’re new to this blog, head over there and give my page a like! I will be eternally grateful :)

Meanwhile, given all the downtime lately, Speed Media and all of its photographers decided to pivot to news related work to cover the COVID-19 crisis to keep food on the table. Not knowing how successful we’d be, it didn’t cost us anything to get out see what was around so, for the last two months I have been out every other day shooting Melbourne under crisis.

It’s been fantastically successful, not only has it kept me sane under lockdown, I don’t think I’ve ever been published so much and it’s turned out to be a winner for Speed Media too. In fact, we’ve decided to continue our news coverage beyond the crisis to include breaking news stories too. Throughout this post I’ve added examples of some of the images I’ve taken around Melbourne since the day sport stood still. You can check out more COVID-19 related work here. I was so glad to be able to do this as scene’s like these will never been seen again. At least not in my lifetime.

Thanks to Speed Media’s already strong relationships with Getty and Rex Features in the UK, our general and breaking news images have been published in The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, GQ Magazine, HuffPost, Business Insider, The Herald Sun, The Daily Tele, The ABC, SBS, The Mirror, Inside Story and many more. I’ve featured some examples on my website.

Photo: Dave Hewison

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - APRIL 27: Amid an unprecedented decline in air travel due to COVID 19 Qantas and Jetstar are having to ground their aircraft. Jetstar and Qantas aircraft stowed at Avalon Airport on 27 April, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire)

Melbourne, Australia, 25 March, 2020. Luna Park in St Kilda closes as COVID-19 Pandemic hits Melbourne, Australia. Credit: Dave Hewison/Alamy Live News

William is carried by his Step Father into the ambulance at Mt Disappointment in Victoria. An air-and-ground search is continuing for lost Victorian teenager William Callaghan, who suffers from non-verbal autism and is lost in steep and rugged terrain in Victoria after temperatures dropped below freezing overnight.

As time has been in abundance lately, to celebrate my new website, and step up my marketing game, I also created my first promo video showcasing my sports work. In the future as sport ramps up, I will be creating these every couple of months to keep the ball rolling so to speak . Here’s the first one, and please remember, it’s my first attempt at video editing, so don’t be too harsh on me.

Well, that’s about all for this post. I hope all of you are weathering the crisis and in good health! Until next time….

Dave shoots for Speed Media Image Agency, a professional photo agency providing coverage of all sports, events and photojournalism. We photograph for international, national and local media agents, including Getty Images, Icon Sportswire, AP, News Corp, The Times, ESPN and CNN. We have a team of commercial photographers ready to shoot for sport teams and sponsors.