Throwing the book, ehrr, ball at you

Please comment/critique/rate this photo. I need to improve. I wish to

become a sports photographer. Help me improve.

And as a token of thanks i'll send a postcard (virtual, that is, like

those on bluemountain.com) thanking those who leave comments on this

photo:)

 

Thanks

Jose, you appear to be off to a good start. My first suggestion would be to try a film other than fuji velvia as it does a poor job recording skin tones. Fuji Provia in any speed has more natural looking skin tones than velvia will give you. I find the person in the yellow shirt in the background a bit distracting, but you can only work with what you've got. In sports you can't move people to make a picture better. Keep it up, you appear to be on the right track.

Yes, please do use something other than Velvia. If you're after fine grain, then Provia F is what you should be using. Your portfolio will not be as well received if photographers/photo editors see skin tones as bad as this. They are quite off-putting.

 

The biggest problem (other than film) is that there just isn't enough action going on in the photo. You really need an opponent in the picture or the player making an acrobatic leap to throw or catch the ball. If this were a story about the player, this shot would work if you could see his eyes better. The eyes are everything.

to me...the shot is cropped a little tight on the right side and the figure in the background is distracting..but you certainly caught a moment with good action and feeling for the intensity of the game.All in all a pretty darn good shot..btw..i'd rather a few moments of your time in commenting on or rating my shots than a postcard,thanks

skintones are indeed a bit too ruddish (or is that a really weird suntan :) ).

It seems slightly underexposed, the meter probably went berserk from the white/black pattern and decided to go for the white.

What is he looking at? The bracketing is a bit narrow.

Try again with NPS, and overexpose a bit (or use matrix metering instead of spotmetering) when you get shirts like these.