George Herringshaw
George Herringshaw has been photographing sport for over forty years and professionally since 1970. His work has appeared in almost every British daily newspaper (there are over fifty) and in countless magazines and books. He has travelled extensively capturing his sporting images, covering all the Summer Olympics Games since 1976 and every one of the World Athletics Championships. To date he has photographed eight football World Cup Finals and numerous European Cup Finals of various kinds. Other sports he has photographed include Golf, Tennis, Rugby (both codes), Horse Racing and Cricket.
His favourite sport to photograph is athletics, not entirely surprising as it was the sport he personally most enjoyed - he was a Leicestershire senior men's 220 yards champion in the 1960s.
He formed the press photo agency 'Associated Sports Photography' in the late 1980s (previously the agency was known as Provincial Sports Photography) and is married with three grown up sons. For over ten years he was an officer of the U.K. based Professional Sports Photographers' Association.
The advent of the auto focus camers systems in the very late 1980s radically altered sports photography. Skilled follow-focus exponents like George, who specialized in 'stock' photos, became common place (most of the earlier images on sporting-heroes.net are stock photos) but the development enabled him to concentrate more on the composition of his pictures. Indeed, all photograhers were able to do this and let their equipment do the mechanical things, like exposure and focus. The most recent development has been the expansion of professional digital cameras which George switched over to in 2002. He currently uses Nikon equipment but switches to Canon (and vice versa) when the need arises. The digital revolution has also allowed the development of the montage pages on sporting-heroes.net
Nigel French
Nigel French began his career as a professional sports photographer in 1989 after studying photography at Leicester College. Since then he has, virtually every summer, photographed the Open golf championship and Wimbledon Tennis, along with countless cricket matches. He has twice visited the West Indies including the infamous 1998 test at Sabina Park, Jamaica, that lasted barely two hours.
He has covered each of the various British and European football finals as well as three European Football Final Tournaments. Other major events at which he has worked include the European Athletics Championships, Cricket's World Cup, The Ryder Cup and Rugby Union's World Cup.
He has yet to photograph Leicester City F.C. winning the FA Cup Final. As it happens no one has ever photographed Leicester City winning the FA cup!
His father first took him to see Leicester City when he was seven and his affection for the 'Foxes' has remained. Needless to say football is Nigel's favourite sport and for his 18th birthday he was given a Leicester City season ticket. That same year he joined Associated Sports Photography and every Saturday that season he ended up elsewhere. His younger brother made good use of the season ticket! He plays golf off a handicap of 10 during what little spare time he gets. He currently works as a freelance for a major British Sports Photo Agency.