A Different Passion…

If football is a religion — and for many it is — then what are its rituals, and who are its saints and martyrs? I came across this man during a rally, wrapped in his team’s colours, crowned with blue plastic strands like a DIY halo, cigarette pinched between fingers, gaze lost somewhere off-frame.

He didn’t look triumphant, nor devastated. Just worn — by hope, by defeat, by something in between. This wasn’t theatre for the camera. He wasn’t performing. He was just still, in that half-breath between chants or cheers or curses.

From a technical standpoint, I shot this with a shallow depth of field, using a fast lens to let the emotion stand alone. The background fades into noise, soft and irrelevant. All sharpness is pulled to the cigarette, the veins in his hand, the weathered face. I allowed the colour to sing — those blues needed their moment.

What strikes me most when I look back at this frame is not the costume or the composition, but the weight it carries. He looks like he’s been carrying that devotion far too long. The image walks that delicate line between irony and reverence, and I won’t pretend to know which side wins.