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Waiting for the ball to drop at the All Ireland Hurling Final. The game

requires speed, power, stamina, bravery and extraordinary levels of skill

and is usually very exciting to watch. Today, Kilkenny (black and

amber) beat waterford easily 3-30 to 1-13, making for a dull spectacle.

very well composed picture, you catched the right moment.

In your description, you left out the part about the players being drunk. This is the craziest game I have ever watched. The interesting part is when a player's head gets between the bat and the ball.

Might have been a bit more entertaining had Tipp made it this far...ah well:) would have been great to see waterford pull it out of the bag. Nice shot!

Thanks for looking.

James,

After looking at several of your other photographs, I have to say that this is not your strongest effort. The first problem that I see that is very obvious is that you are too far away from the action. This just looks like a snapshot that Joe Anybody could take and is not very interesting. Secondly, almost everyone's back is to the camera and you lose all of the great and interesting facial expressions that are most definately happening away from the camera. Third, there is a lot of green. I understand that you wanted to get the ball in the picture but the picture, in my opinion, would have benefited from waiting the extra tenth of a second for the ball to get closer to the players so a little more cropping could take place. I could live without the referee being in the picture also.

 

There is nothing better than to give a bunch of guys wooden clubs and tell them to go and play a game. The possibilities are endless. The subject matter is good but you missed most of the intensity by not getting close and getting the faces.

Thanks for your honest critique. I have to say I agree with most of your points. I am certainly joe average when it comes to photographing sports! I was lucky enough to get a ticket so I brought along my camera and cheap 70-300mm lens. Distance from the action is definitely a problem; i was about 40 rows back from the pitch in an 84000 seat stadium, and in addition the playing area is quite large. This s a half-frame crop at 300mm. Facial expressions would certainly make for a better photo. I like having the ball in the frame, another 1/100 of a second later would probably have been better. As for the game itself, it is so much more than a group of guys with clubs! But that's another story! To see some shots by the fellas with the white lens pitchside, try http://www.inpho.ie