C'MON REF!!?

Please critique my photo. Shot at a college basketball tournament in

Feb 2003.

Great emotion! Talk about your decisive moment. Great catch.

It's a great expression, but what's missing here is more of the context of the game. A wider shot would have helped and so would panning to the left.

great emotion. The photo itself appears a little flat. Could use a curves adjustment in photoshop if your so inclined.

I agree on the flatness. Just not quite enough contrast and zip for the expression.

I had underexposed the film intentionally to use a faster shutter speed in the arena. Also, was adjusted in photoshop to pick up the detail in his suit so I chose to flatten it out a bit. Also, I was watching his emotion for a few minutes and waited for the right moment.

 

Someone mentioned a wider shot to see what was going on along with his emotions. Would have made the shot too busy.

There are a lot of "sports" photos on this site. This is the best I've seen. It is simple and staight forward. CONTEXT? You'd have to be living in a cave to NOT know this is a basketball coach at a what? Yes, BASKETBALL GAME. More in the frame to "add context" WOULD make it too busy. This is a great candid portrait with all kinds of emotion and enough left unsaid to force the viewer to put a certain level of thought into it and contemplate the moment. Not all photos should tell you everything about the moment. Great shot!

Now the downside. It is unfortunate that the sharpest aspect of the photo is not his face but his Wingtips. Still a great shot.

I was watching the VA Union Coach from photographers row and shot this of him going nuts on the sidelines. It was a quick focus/shot because I run manual focus and trying to keep up with game action at the same time.

 

This was from my first basketball tournament ever, a Div II NCAA event.

Thanks for the feedback on my comment. I don't take many indoor sports pictures; it does sound like you're dealing with a difficult environment as best you can. If you've intentionally flattened this out some, one thing that might be interesting is to post a different version and see what reactions you get to that -- I have found that very useful. In a way, this may be like theatre shots, which I do take a number of and which is the context I use in assessing this, but in theatre shots I, at least, often try to use the lighting defects to produce somewhat artistic effects, and you probably don't want to do that in a sports shot.

 

I agree on not needing more context -- this is a good strong subject, why would you do anything to take the focus away?

The shot was done under TV lights and we have to under expose to get a faster shutter speed....was not into digital at the time and was shot on film. It was a one-frame/ one-shot situation and I was lucky to catch his reaction.