Welcome
FLOE. Football Landscapes of Europe.
Though I grew up loving football grounds, when I set-out to watch and photograph football in each of the 55 countries that make-up UEFA, I wanted to make the journeys more about the stuff that surrounds them; the football landscapes not the football grounds.
The geography, the sights, the history, the differences and the quirks that are just sometimes unique to the country I was visiting – the landscapes first and the football second.
My photos are showcased on this website and they include some I’ve used at my exhibitions and some that will appear in my book that will be published in 2023. All were taken using the landscape as the core.
It has been fun to do but its also been incredibly challenging. There’s been far too much time spent researching places across the whole of the continent in search of the football landscapes that when pulled together, represented the UEFA continent. It began with finding lots of amazing landscapes in mountains and valleys, and then realising the football landscape I needed to photograph had to be broader than that.
My travels have taken me to football landscapes that vary from those with UNESCO heritage sites as backdrops to the industrial to the serene, to landscapes with trains, boats and planes in shot as well as urban backdrops and places that symbolise some significant moments in Europe’s history . Naturally the trips also included occassinal pyro and some majestic and unusual stands, and some that I had personal connections with.
It has taken a little over a decade to get me to the place where I now have photos from all 55 UEFA countries. The project commenced in earnest in Belgium in 2012 and kind of concluded with me completing the UEFA 55 in San Marino in October 2022.
I say kind of because journeys like this never really conclude. Though thankfully, I have just a handful of places left to photograph to ensure that the breadth of the book is right, the reality is the more I researched the more I found and there are still a few football landscapes on my list that I hope to do one day.
I am a Plymouth Argyle fan by birth and if I’m not watching them or Plymouth Parkway, I can be found watching games in the Bristol area or just possibly, somewhere else on the UEFA continent.
The website doesn’t include every location that will feature in the book as I want some surprises for that. It will be updated monthly to feature new landscapes and blogs. The site will also be updated to include links to pre-oder signed editions of the book when the publication date is confirmed.
Thank you for visiting.
Dave Harry, March 2023.
Photo of Dave at IF Vestri in Iceland, taken by Steve Carpenter, Twitter: @Scarpenter_67
