Interview: Mark McDermott - Shamrock Rover's photographer

Every player moves differently... I could show you pictures, for example, of certain players that I have. I'll give the example of Lia O'Leary. I probably have a thousand photos of her crossing the ball and for every single one of those images you can't tell which game it's from because her movement is so specific to her. 

Mark McDermott is getting married in the morning - well, almost.

The self-taught Shamrock Rovers photographer is days away from tying the knot with his fiancée Laura when he picks up TheEcho’s call.

Despite the magnitude of the hour, the County Down father of two has kindly agreed to discuss his love of sports photography and wastes no time in recalling his first game in the Rovers high vis vest.

“That was against Bohs,” McDermott reminisces, no doubt recalling the electric atmosphere of the Dublin Derby in March 2022. “It was fantastic because I was also brand new to the league. I knew nothing about it and I'd never experienced a match or anything. So yeah, it was definitely a big game to start with but I got the buzz straight away.”

The thirty-five year old first discovered photography when he was twenty-five - “I always seemed to be taking nice photos on my phone,” He qualifies, “ I can be quite impulsive sometimes so I decided ‘right I’m going to buy myself a relatively expensive camera.’”

That particular piece of kit (a Canon 70D) would lead to an unexpected invite to take on the role of club photographer for Newry side Windmill Stars in the Mid Ulster Football League.

“The coach would have been a friend of mine,” McDermott confides, “and he said , ‘do you want to bring your camera along? It would be good for the club’s social media.’ So I used to go to the matches with them as the club photographer…and yeah, I started enjoying shooting football all the time.”

An employment opportunity then took McDermott to Dublin in 2018.

Shortly thereafter the Covid 19 pandemic resulted in the cessation of sporting events across the world, and the lens of the Canon began to gather dust.

“The camera sat in the bag for six or eight months.” McDermott admits, “I was doing nothing on the side. I was just going to the gym and keeping fit.”

However the Newry native’s desire to get back on the pitch never waned and as government measures began to relax, he sought an opportunity to volunteer with the soon to be four in a row giants.

Despite an uptake in Covid cases resulting in the postponement of his first Hoops gig, the sharpshooter persisted and has now solidified his place as one of several key photographers at the Rovers HQ.

“We have a number of photographers at Rovers,” McDermott explains, "so we always have great coverage.

We have Pat Kehoe. He's great at covering the fan photos and the mascots and the like. Then we have George Kelly - he would be our most senior photographer there. George always gets great pre-match photos, warm-up photos. If you’re coming in a bit earlier, you might also decide to capture photos of the players arriving.”

A unique prism from which to view matchday we both agree.

“Well it's basically a case of, I've either been on the pitch or I haven't been there -  that's my full experience of watching Rovers.” McDermott reflects, “I've no experience of standing and jumping around with the fans in the stands. I like to sit down in front of the South Stand near the scoreboard. I enjoy the atmosphere and the sounds behind me. And sometimes you can just whip the camera around and get a nice photo of the fans celebrating.”

Given the intensity of the action, The Echo is curious to know how the soon to be groom picks the perfect moment to trigger the shutter.

“It's instinctive. You see something that you hope someone else hasn't seen and you take it.

“Like I remember we were playing Shels at the end of the season and were very close to winning the four in a row,” He continues, “Trevor Clarke scored and he was going along the sidelines and the Shels fans were giving it loads. Trevor was standing in the smoke holding his three fingers up to the Shelbourne fans. It was a great moment and people were delighted to see it. That's the beauty of sports photography. There's always something going on somewhere around you, you know - especially in a packed-out stadium like Tallaght.”

McDermott is quick to add that such thrilling moments are not the only stills that serve to connect the audience on a visceral level to the action.

“The sporting lows… both can be equally impactful. It's ultimately about the emotion,” The Rovers snapper trails off, no doubt filtering through the thousands of images stored in his own memory bank - (McDermott throughout our interview does this often.)

“Like Amanda (Budden) really shows her emotion. She's very vocal. I have a great shot of her screaming in another player's face. You want to see that emotion. I could show you four different photos from four different matches and you wouldn't be able to differentiate them. But if I show you a picture of Amanda screaming in someone's face, you'd say, oh, that was definitely ‘that’ game.”

Given the speed of your average football match, we ask McDermott to elaborate further on the process behind real-time image capture - both from a technical and positional standpoint.

We soon learn that it is a crucial aspect to the craft that a sports photographer must master.

“I use a Sony A7 as my main camera and that would have a high shutter speed,” McDermott says,

“If there's a player running down the lane, I'll be shooting a lot in sequence. If you're sitting to the left or right of the goal, you're getting the wingers running down the line. That lane of play could go on for maybe 15, 20 seconds. Sometimes I like to test myself and I'll have the camera in single shot mode but then you can't mess it up. You know, you can get a good shot but the ball is out of the frame!”

Would McDermott agree that preparation is key?

A resounding ‘aye’ from the Newryman.

“Well from an equipment point of view, you need to make sure that all of your batteries are charged, that there's memory left - that cards are wiped and formatted.

You have to set your camera up before you leave the house because you know, it might be a sunny day, a cloudy day - there may be floodlights, so there's so many aspects to take into account. Then you arrive at the pitch and take up your position.”

While McDermott’s positional preference has become the far left hand corner of the South Stand End, he explains that the action on the turf can often dictate his final station.

“It can depend on how the team's playing. If we're playing great and the game's up in the opposition's half then all you have is the defenders' backs, you know?  Then again, if it's a 50-50 match, I'd be getting great shots of our defenders coming back towards our own goal. Battles and challenges, you know, there's so many, it's such an unpredictable thing. It's very fluid.”

And how about the weather?

“Well we don't want the sun. Which is something that a lot of people wouldn't understand,” He adds, "But if the sun's too bright, and if the stadium's half-lit, you're constantly changing settings and you're missing shots - it can be a nightmare all together. But now others may tell you, ‘no, he's wrong. I love shooting in the sun’ - everyone's different. I love capturing a good photo in the rain. It's just the fact that you have to be in the rain to capture that. If I miss something big, I'll try and make up for it with something else. But you do need to be switched on.”

At that moment a young voice calls out at the other end of the line.

A Rovers fan?

“No, that would be my youngest,” He says, a trace of a smile in his voice. “He's four. My older boy is twelve and he is football mad - he lives up the North. He used to be a Liverpool fan, so I brought him to Anfield. He loved the trip, the experience, and then I brought him to Tallaght and he actually told me that Tallaght was better than Anfield. Which was, you know, that was nice for me. Because I'm connected to the club. He was actually there for the trophy lift last year. I took him onto the pitch with me and he was delighted.”

Familiar with the lightning speed with which the Rovers media team upload images to their social media channels both pre, mid and post match, we ask McDermott to dispel the mystery.

“I select the ones that I think are the best and ping them across.” He says, “I have my laptop next to me on the sidelines - or I can put the camera's memory card into my phone and WhatsApp the images across.”

The Echo then discusses the feel-good factor that accompanies external recognition of work produced, along with the strange and wonderful ways in which one's passion can come full circle - and touch others lives in the process.

“I work in Tallaght Hospital,” McDermott reveals. “I'm a data manager in cancer trials and work with a great team. There was a Christmas market and I think I sold about 30 plus images and 30 plus prints. People were really loving them. Some of the patients and their visitors said to me ‘I follow your Instagram, but I didn't actually realise it was you.’ That was a really nice feeling.”

As our conversation winds down, we thank McDermott for his time, wishing both he and his bride to be the best as we conclude the interview with one final question.

Will the groom be tempted to cast an experienced eye over his wedding photographer's snaps?

A flash of a smile through the mouthpiece.

“No, no. There's nothing worse than someone hovering over your shoulder when you're trying to do your job.” He assures us.

Big picture thinking.