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Gameday with David Silverman

New England Revolution Team Photographer

By Miguel Angel Lopez Rojas

March 31^st, 2019

Ever wondered what a day in the life of a team photographer is like?

Known for wearing a Fedora hat, he's been taking photographs for over 35 years, 23 of which he has spent alongside the New England Revolution and 27 with the New England Patriots, but that is a story for another time.

David Silverman has been the team photographer for the New England Revolution since the very beginning of Major League Soccer (MLS) back in 1996, when there were only 10 teams in the league. Now the MLS is made up of 24 teams, with 3 expansion teams joining in the near future.

Today we are following David as he covers New England Revolution's first-ever game against expansion side, FC Cincinnati.

My job is to do anything photo-related. I have to take care of the photos for each of their platforms. Whether it is social media, the website, telling a story on an individual player or coach.

Players' arrival

David's day typically starts four hours before kick-off. This allows him to make sure he has everything he needs and is ready to photograph the Revs players coming in for work.

Game time

Prior to the players heading out for their pre-game warm ups followed by kick-off, there is a lot of waiting around to do. At precisely 13h, we follow David into the Gillette Stadium's Press Box where he and any other staff members working on today's game can have lunch overlooking the Revs home. On today's menu was an assortment of salads, penne pasta, chicken parmigiana and much more.

Lunch is over and David heads back down to the field level where he will grab his gear and head over to the Revs locker room. Inside the locker room he will get some photographs of the players getting ready and then stepping onto the field for their pre-game warm up.

Today and on any normal gameday, David takes four camera bodies with him. Three Canon 1D X's and a Sony a9. As for his lenses, he will use a 600mm, a 200-400mm, a 70-200mm and a 16-24mm. This pretty much covers anywhere he is on the field, whether he needs to be further in or further away.

Carrying all that equipment is no easy task. He is constantly carrying stuff on his hands, things are on his neck and on his side. In order to be able to constantly carry all of that, David works out on his own a couple of times a week. David said, "I work out my core and balance so that I can carry all of that without the heavy weight on me and get used to balance it".

One would think that David is running around the field alone throughout the 90 minutes, but that is not the case. Alyssa Hanifan, part of the Revs social media team, shadows David and grabs all the photographs he is taking. Alyssa explained, "I take all of his photos in real time and download them straight from his camera to our iPad so that our social team can post them".

David's goal on any gameday is to get the best photo possible for whatever platform the Revolution needs the images for. Alyssa said that "working with him is very exciting and it took a while for him to trust me for him to handle off his cameras". Since David is carrying so many cameras, he has trusted Alyssa and will toss her the bigger cameras so that he can run in and take the shots that he has to get.

The average game, David will take around 2,500 images and from those the team will use about 30 right away. However, during the week or when they are doing stories on players, David needs to make sure that he covers every player who is on the field because one can never know what they will need.

The final whistle is blown and the Revolution suffer a 2-0 loss to FC Cincinnati. David's day has come to an end and before he heads back home to Rhode Island, he hands over his SD cards to the social media team to double check they have everything they need.