West Ham United’s first-team squad took advantage of the scorching September weather to pose for their traditional team photo.
Slaven Bilic, his backroom staff and the 28-man squad travelled to London Stadium before pulling on their Umbro 2016/17 Home kits for the shoot.
The photoshoot, which has the huge East Stand Kop with its iconic ‘West Ham’ wording and crossed hammers pattern in the background, was overseen by Daily Mail photographer Andy Hooper.
The experienced and talented Hooper, whose images adorn the recently-published Farewell to Upton Park book, revealed the process behind taking the perfect team photo.
“We’re just trying to get a clean group shot which shows the team in situ in the Stadium,” he explained. “We’ve got ‘West Ham’ written on the seats in the stand and we want to show that with the Hammers logo, together with the lights which show it is in the new London Stadium, with a clean team shot in the foreground.
“They always say the sun is the photographer’s friend, but on this occasion it is shining straight into the lens, so we’ve flagged it off. We want it to be nice and sunny, so we can work around it a little bit and it’s actually worked out pretty well.
“The biggest challenge of the day is getting 30-plus people looking into the lens. We just want a nice, happy smile and everyone looking uniform and the same, with their hands on their knees, straight-backed and looking straight ahead.”
Reflecting on the process after taking a variety images of, first, the squad and coaching staff, then the squad, coaches and wider backroom staff, Hooper hailed the shoot as a success.
“It’s a great squad picture with elite footballers and they’re fantastic to photograph, very controlled and they did the job really well,” he beamed.
“Funnily enough, it was really quiet when I thought there would be lots of laughter and joking around, but actually they just got on and did the job.
“It’s really good and showed the Stadium off, which is what we wanted to do as this is the first official shot in the new Stadium. It did that perfectly and the guys look great.”
The 2016/17 West Ham United team photo will be given away as a poster with the Official Programme for the Premier League visit of Southampton on 25 September.