What is it like to be a professional photographer for Middlesbrough Football Club?

Tom Banks, club photographer for Middlesbrough Football Club, started taking photos at 13, mainly as a hobby snapping himself and friends skateboarding. TUXtra’s Sam Robson spoke to him about his career so far.

It started as a hobby for Tom, but he soon professionalised his work by studying photography at college. This allowed him to build experience at a Sunday newspaper before eventually taking a senior role at the Teesside Gazette, which Tom applied for “thinking he wouldn’t get it” before being pleasantly surprised. After two years at the Gazette, Tom made the move to The Northern Echo in 2008, where he would meet TUXtra’s very own Jim Entwistle, journalism course leader at Teesside University. After this, Tom was given the opportunity to become a club photographer for Boro where he currently works, travelling up and down the country catching all Boro games for the club.

Since becoming club photographer, Tom recalls his favourite match being away to European giants Manchester United in the fourth round of the 2021/22 season’s FA Cup. Going into the match, Tom rightly describes Middlesbrough as “huge underdogs” and the fact that Boro “gave it a real good go” made this his favourite match. However, it isn’t always plain sailing, as during the penalty shootout of this match, Tom remembers being at the opposite end to where the penalties were being taken and thus “really only getting views of the backs of [the players]”.

Despite this, once Boro had cemented their place in the fifth round, all the players “ran up to the corner I was in because the fans were behind me” allowing Tom to get some better shots of the players, full of joy after an unlikely upset.

When asked for the best bit of advice he could offer a would-be photographer, Tom stressed the importance of practice, and mentioned, for sports photographers, visiting a local non-league team to try and develop skills. I asked Tom if there was a ‘photographer’s sense’ to be developed when practising framing, lighting and all which is important when considering a good photo, to which the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. Demonstrating his own grasp of this, Banks describes Middlesbrough player Finn Azaz, who he has found out tends to shoot from the edge of the box. Tom has grown to expect this, and thus it allows him to anticipate how the Irishman will move, helping capture a better photo.