Through excellent pictures, Nick Compton raises funds and follows his ardour

A fast scroll by way of his Instagram web page tells you the way gifted a photographer Nick Compton is. Stills brimming with freshness. Subjects starting from the grizzlies of Alaska to gorillas of Uganda, Namibian dunes to Japanese bamboo forests.
The former England opener paints equally compelling photos over the cellphone. Speaking to The Indian Express from Cape Town, Compton regarded again at a morning spent photographing Mumbai eight years in the past.
“I got up at six in the morning and walked the streets of Mumbai with a camera. The merchants coming down on the train into Mumbai Central against the sun coming up. The flowers and the spices. All the markets and people setting themselves up,” Compton says. “It was such a visual experience. I felt probably as excited walking those streets as I did hitting the winning runs the day before.”
The day earlier than, Compton had guided England to a 10-wicket win, levelling the 2012/13 Test collection they might famously go on to win. What have been his teammates doing at 6 that morning?
“Nursing big hangovers, potentially,” Compton laughs. “Potentially sleeping in, a lot of them. Each to their own, some of the guys enjoy PlayStation and staying in the hotel. I was somebody who enjoyed experiencing the country that I was in. And India was such an exciting place to be.”

Nestled in Compton’s Instagram feed is one other reminiscence from that tour. A photograph of Matt Prior over the last Test in Nagpur. The England keeper collapsed in a chair within the dressing room, head on the armrest. “I love this shot because test cricket is simply just that – mentally and emotionally exhausting,” reads the caption.
“It was a moment in time. One of those moments in the changing room, which exemplify just how intense Test cricket is,” the South Africa-born 37-year-old says.
With enviable, unrestricted entry to quite a few such moments, Compton’s digital camera was by no means out of attain.
“I found myself often sitting in the changing room, and a player just got out or was padding up or sitting there contemplating how he was going to go about things… I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sitting there, padding up and thinking ‘I’d love to take that photo’. I had to catch myself a few times,” he says.
“It made me excited to capture that and go, ‘Wow, what a great photo’. Definitely got as much excitement out of that as I did at times playing. Every player has their own escape, ways of switching off. I also thought that in years to come, the players would really like some of these photos.”
Means of escape for Compton throughout the enjoying days, the digital camera turned a robust software of restoration and transition afterward.
****
Nick Compton retired after not that includes for Middlesex in 2018.
Compton has been candid about psychological health-related points in cricket and his personal battle with melancholy.
“In 2013 when I lost my England place, I also broke up with a girlfriend who had a very public profile. That was definitely a time when I was on the field and realised that something wasn’t right. The performance anxiety became too much. I didn’t feel as resilient. I think I was quite self judgmental because you need to have that resilience to push yourself to play at that level. But I knew that there was a trauma that perhaps hadn’t been worked through. The harder I pushed, the worse it got.”
Compton believes that the stigma has gone away just a little, “but deep down, the problem is still very much there” and “a lot of organisations now say the right things because politically they need to.”
“For me, I realised, ‘Look, I’m not well and I need some help. I don’t know what to do’. But it’s also difficult because you’re in a professional world that as soon as you say I need help, something’s wrong, the coach or the captain now see you in a slightly different way with vulnerabilities.”
As a cricketer, Compton carried the legacy of being the grandson of Denis Compton — England’s sporting legend who scored 17 centuries in 78 Tests and 15 targets in 54 video games for Arsenal soccer membership. But he asserts that the household identify was by no means a burden.
“I was obviously very proud. When I was very young, seeing the pictures of my grandfather at home made me go, ‘Oh, I want to achieve that’. But when you’re 5-6 years old, how much can the grandfather really have an impact? I don’t know,” says Compton. “I think people can get caught up in the grandfather thing. I viciously and competitively was a very talented sportsman at school. The drive came from within. I wanted to be as good as Kallis or Dravid or Tendulkar or Lara. These are the guys I looked at.”
After a quick worldwide comeback in 2015, Compton took a six-week break in June 2016 after a disappointing Test collection in opposition to Sri Lanka. He retired after not that includes for Middlesex within the 2018 county marketing campaign.
“At Middlesex, I didn’t finish on my own terms. Particularly at a time when I was struggling with mental health, I don’t feel anyone really understood what I was going through. Fundamentally, when you retire and you finish the sport… it’s like a girlfriend, it was a wife, a relationship that ends. I needed to clear my head and find out what it is that I wanted to do going forward,” says Compton. “It’s all about understanding that you’re probably not going to feel quite the intensity or the heights of scoring winning runs or hundreds.”
Photography, then, allowed him “to tap into some of those feelings again.”
“Going out and getting immersed in my photography, that creative process is very mindful. When I’m behind my camera, in the streets with the lights and the colours and the people, I’m totally immersed. And when we feel connected to our breath, or to our photography, or to yoga, or to even batting when you’re in the moment of batting, nothing else matters. All your problems go away.”
****
One of many images in South Africa by Nick Compton.
His work has been a part of a number of exhibitions, the newest about to open in Chicago. And for Compton, there are decidedly fewer nerves in the case of openings nowadays.
“I think with cricket, I teetered on the edge of dealing with failure and self-doubt. But with photography, I feel less doubt. You want to know that people like your stuff. But I think fundamentally, I’m excited to just be getting out there.”
There are parallels too.
“Sport is a very lonely, selfish pursuit of excellence. And I think photography is also quite a lonely existence in the sense that it’s about your own skill. Behind each shot, there’s something that I’m seeing, whether it be in the colours, the sunlight, the textures, the people’s faces, whatever it is, that attracts me,” says Compton. “That individuality of expression in a moment of time, I find very similar with opening the batting. Because it’s you against that ball. And a moment in time. You have to be very focused and stimulated. Also, it’s the athleticism behind it. You’ve got to be an athletic photographer.”
The photographic oeuvre options sweeping panoramas and tight portraits, however a number of Compton’s work is character research. While he has captured underprivileged areas of India, Sri Lanka, USA, Compton is at present utilizing pictures to attach with the “rough, rich cultural history” of Africa. Through his newest pictures collection, Compton has been elevating funds for the indigenous communities and tribes of South Africa which have been hit laborious by Covid-19.
****
The dialog expectedly veers in the direction of cricket and there’s quite a bit to debate. Compton talks about England’s Test collection loss in India, the discourse over the pitches, the artwork of defence — “I didn’t want to get out quickly because what’s the point if you didn’t experience the crowd” — and the way Alastair Cook’s group of 2012 was totally different from Joe Root’s.
There’s a want to remain related to the game. Last month, he despatched out a tweet to broadcaster Sky Sports: “I should be commenting/commentating on this India v England Series – come @SkyCricket how many people have won in India (sic).”

I ought to be commenting/commentating on this India v England Series – come @SkyCricket how many individuals have received in India 🇮🇳
— Nick Compton (@thecompdog) February 3, 2021

“It was a bit more tongue in cheek. Not aggressively or anything, but I was like, ‘hey’,” Compton laughs. “I’m young, I’m fresh. I have a rich cricketing history. I feel that there is a place for my voice. I don’t have to be working for Sky, but I do feel it’s a series that I could have offered a lot of insight for. I’d have loved to come and work in India.”
Compton was gearing up for an India journey anyway, as a part of the England Legends squad for an ongoing exhibition event, earlier than he broke his ankle operating. There’s disappointment, however Compton’s glad understanding his recollections of India are preserved neatly as a set of prints.
“When I went to India, when we won that series, I didn’t just go from one five-star hotel to another and then left. I kind of had an experience that went beyond that. And I can honestly say that I really experienced the country. My winning that series was a complete feeling rather than being just another cricket tour,” he says. “If I never had that experience again, if I never went back to India… I could really look back and go, ‘well, I did it, you know?”