Maria Sharapova

I really like the mix of forms and colours in this one. The patch of blue, the shadow, and the ball itself, providing a sharp point of energy and contrast in the vast field of green... It is a terrific combination.

Lex, that image was done "by design." I was at that same tournament a year earlier in 2007, when I captured this similar image (the dress was, of course, different). I knew exactly where in the stadium I should be to get the angle of the sun, and the shadow is indeed what makes the image. Having 9 frames/second on the D3 helps in 2008. The 2007 image was captured with a D2X and a 70-200mm zoom with a 1.4x teleconverter; I stopped down to f4 for an effective f5.6 after the TC to improve the quality.

One more excellent shot full of energy.

Arrggghhh... I see this is yet another of my critiques/comments that vanished in mid to late 2009 during some peculiar system glitch. Dunno what happened but virtually all of over a thousand critiques/comments since 2000 vanished last year.

 

Anyway, what reminded me of this photo...

 

This afternoon I had a weird dream in which I was assigned to cover a high level tennis match. I'd never shot one before but miraculously had a D3S and 200-400/4 VR (neither of which I can afford). And I was frustrated because no matter where I stood in the viewing area, I couldn't get precisely this angle, along with this specific type of shadow from the player. Every other angle produced a cluttered background. And I remember thinking to myself "Where the heck does Shun sit to get this particular type of photo?"

 

I'm more of a boxing fan than tennis, so for whatever reason, this particular moment of peak action captured my imagination.

 

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have peculiarly specific, very realistic and often rather mundane dreams like this.