19 hours Ago
Of course there are plenty of video highlights available online, but how about being able to see all the big talking points from the game in one image? Alex Cozzi, son of long-standing official club photographer Alan, has been working alongside his Dad at Watford matches for the last five years, and used an idea he saw in America to capture a truly stunning picture that captures everything from that win over the Hatters in one single picture. “I got the idea from a photographer in America called Pelle Cass, who creates some really interesting and complex composite images,” Alex explained. “He made one for an NFL game and I thought it was such a great way of capturing the entire story of a game in one image.
I hadn’t seen it done in football so I thought I would try it out. “I first attempted it when we played Sheffield United but I had issues with lighting so it became difficult to put it together and make it look natural. “I tried it again and again at every home game and only one of the attempts was successful and that was against Norwich.
“Every time I’d done it we’d lost so I was apprehensive of doing it against Luton as I thought it was becoming a bit of a curse, but we beat them and everything fell into place.” The incredible image shows everything from the teams lining up before kick-off, to Mamadou Doumbia being brought down for the penalty and Tom Dele-Bashiru converting it, Edo Kayembe tapping in the second goal and the players celebrating in front of a flag-laden Rookery End. “I used an old Nikon D3 camera that had been consigned to the cupboard and probably not used since Walter Mazzari was in charge,” Alex laughed.
“I set the camera up on a TV gantry at the back of the Vicarage Road End with a remote trigger on it. “This meant that every time I fired either of my cameras pitch-side the camera at the back of the stand would capture the same image from above. “I had to make sure I took enough photos so that every part of the image had something happening, and as you can see from the image there are still empty spaces where I didn’t achieve this, even after trawling through all 3000 images.
“It took me nearly a week and a half to put the image together: I had to cut out each individual player and make all sorts of adjustments so that it looked natural. It was quite a painful process.” Those hours of work have certainly been worthwhile, so much so that demands for a print of the picture have led Alex to make it available to purchase it online.
Anyone wanting to do so can . Those who choose to will obviously receive the image without the Alex Cozzi watermark, which is there purely stop the image being used without permission. The image will be sent as a 16” x 9” inch print and include everything as seen in the example here.
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