Taken in Raleigh, NC at nephew's soccer game. They are still in the "Everyone Huddle Around the Ball" phase. 7-8 yr. olds. They had a blast and I wanted to try my hand at some action photos. Taken at 300mm, handheld. This was one of the better ones and the shot turned out okay (excellent action, but average composition due to busy background).
Did a USM, increased the reds and blues a bit, brightness was increased alot as my AV was not small enough.
Very surprised this did not get between a 5 and 5.5 but a lot of voters seemed to have trouble with "what morning means to the photographer" rather than what morning means to them (as evidenced by 25 or so scores under 4, ouch).
I'm happy with the image as it's not easy to capture a good action shot, so I guess that is the most important thing.
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Greetings from the Critique Club: I have been assigned your photo to critique and here are my thoughts:
Personal Reaction: My first reaction to your photo was, “Nice snap!” My kids all played soccer and I loved the fall morning games â€Â¦ crisp, clear, bright. These were great times with my young family. So I can resonate with the photo. Good job catching that spirit and feeling.
Composition: I like some elements of the composition. The placement of the 2 boys is good. You have a nice dynamic triangle going on with the ball and their two heads. The stopped motion of their legs points to the center of the action which leads you eye into the photo. All good stuff. The fence and the car in the background distract me. They are unnecessary for the image. When shooting sports, one crucial element is managing the background and this could have been done better. Perhaps a better background would have been the rest of the team, or the opposing team’s members behind the action. Still the action happens where ever it will and it’s not always easy to anticipate where to stand to manage the background. That’s something to work on next time. Watch the flow of the game. Observe where things seem to happen. And position yourself so they will happen between you and a desirable background.
Technicals: The technical execution is actually pretty good. Using a long lens, hand-held, and capturing fast action with good focus, good lighting, and good stopped motion isn’t so easy. You did a good job here, although it feels slightly over exposed. One thing you might try next time is to use the shallowest possible DoF by choosing you widest available aperture. If you are close enough to the action, you will get some DoF blurring which will help isolate your subject and focus attention on the subject players. If you look at Sports Illustrated photos, this is a technique that the pros use to great effect.
Conclusions: When we take snapshots, we are usually recording something about someone we know, or something we have a personal affinity for. In this case, it was your nephew. You or a family member will look at the photo and it will bring back the memory of the game. Which is great, and on that level, this is a great photo. But a disinterested party won’t have the personal affinity with the subject. If (s)he is a DPC voter, the photo will need to impress them without relying on the personal affinity. In this case, the subject wasn’t strong enough, and the tie in to the challenge theme wasn’t strong enough to carry the photo.
You haven’t been a member very long and haven’t entered that many challenges yet. Don’t be disappointed. Give yourself some time to find your personal style. Work on your subject choices and point of view with each. Try to tell a story a disinterested observer will resonate with.
As always, this is my personal opinion. Feel free to PM me if you’d like further dialog.
To make sports images work you have to isolate the action. Place yourself where you can get a clear background, anticipating where the action will come. This image has a car/auto encroaching on the left, but worse still is halfway through the kid. On the right, the other kid is halfway across the coach/ref.
Keep it clean, isolate the action and you will do much better.
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