Tigers burning bright: Hull City on film

Words: David Jones

Images: David Jones

Hull City On Film is a project that is aimed at showcasing Hull City in a different context to the content shown by official club accounts.

Photography has always been a passion of mine, from a young age my mother gave me multiple throw-away cameras and it was a hobby that has stuck with me ever since. From taking it up as a course in college to utilising it in my day-to-day life when working on creative projects for my day job.

My other main passion as you can guess is Hull City. Over the last year or so I’ve really gotten into film photography from a personal point of view and I’d seen a surge in accounts on Instagram that focused on film photography at sport matches.

These really inspired me into putting my own spin on taking photographs at Hull City.

Being an on and off season ticket holder since 2004 I’d always taken photographs at games. Numerous photos have been taken on my phone from days out at Wembley, away days and pitch invasions when waiting for Leeds to aid us in our promotion push after a dramatic game against Cardiff in 2013.

None of these shots were ever really put into anything though and I wanted to start documenting it properly.

©David Jones/ Terrace Edition. Hull City AFC.

A couple of years ago I was gifted a 1991 Ricoh RZ-800 by my wife’s grandparents. This took me back to shooting film photography in college and seeing how a roll of film would come out. The grain on the scans looked great and I sold some prints from my first roll of film. Sadly the Ricoh didn’t last long and I started to have issues with the cameras body.

I decided to buy a Kodak M38 which I took away with me when visiting Milan last year. Whilst on the trip I attended Como vs Benevento and I took some photographs whilst at the game. This piqued my interest in film photography and sport.

I upgraded to a Minolta 140 Riva Zoom and took this with me to the next Hull City game I attended. This is how Hull City On Film started and after some practice to see how it could handle the movement that sports and fan photography brings.

One of my favourites games this season was vs Plymouth Argyle, purely from a photography point of view as we drew and didn’t really turn up that day.

I managed to capture a lot of photographs that had great contrast with the overcast weather that day. A bright green pitch at the MKM, amber and black kits on display and the dim of the floodlights all blending in with the grey skies.

Throughout the 23/24 season so far I’ve tried to showcase more of the fan culture from pre/post match and I’m also hoping to focus on kit culture and the emotion that is shown throughout matches.

I’ve also produced a photobook showcasing images from last season in a 25 page A5 format.