Do you shoot?

Is that a joke I don't understand? Sorry.

 

No. And with all respect to Rodent, as the other four pictures are fantastic. Action shots -- especially basketball -- need the ball in them fully. The eye is drawn away from the main subject (the person with the ball) to the one defender in that shot as well.

 

Shit, Dayton. I screwed it up.

 

As a writer who had a camera shoved in his hands, I'm generally just happy when my photos are in focus. I do have a bad habit of shooting too tight. I'll have to pay more attention to this.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I will point out that the baseball shot up top blatantly breaks the ball-in-photo rule, and I figured the strength of the photo balanced that. I explained in the cutline that the ball bounced into left field and the kid scored on the play.

 

I got a similiar introduction into photography. I bet a lot of writers on this board did as well. As papers continue to cut back, I've noticed more and more shops dump photographers and get writers to get the art.

See, in that first baseball shot, I thought the baseman had the ball in glove. And Devil said it best when it's more of a pet peeve.

I love that little league photo by the way. The expressions on the kids faces' as they try to make that catch are funny!

 

Those shots are very good.

I also forget the rule on cropping limbs. Not at the joint, right?

 

Here's a couple more that I would love some feedback on. [Full disclosure: Rhody photoshopped/edited many of these and made them look better than I could].

 

Pilot,
I see what you're saying in the hoops shot (as Schieza said, I cropped and edited the photo). I try to crop tight, but sometimes after going through 40 photos Schieza says "are good," I rush through and don't crop as tight as I should.
Question though - wouldn't cropping off the bottom have worked as well? Figure if I cut the sides a bit, might as well trim some off the bottom?

 

Pilot,

Thanks for the feedback. Regarding the nighttime football shot, I actually got lucky on that in that I was about 30-40 yards away from the line of scrimmage per the regulations of the Ivy League and was just focusing on the quarterback. For whatever reason, I saw him drop back and got the feeling he was going to launch it. I moved my eyes from the camera, saw the receiver bolting open and hurried to shift my camera to him.

Didn't know if I got the shot until I got it but, when I looked at it, I was really surprised because I definitely didn't spend any time whatsoever setting it up. Just kind of swung my camera to the right, searched for the guy and hoped it would come out.

I was standing in a pack of about four other photos and I was the only one who got the shot and it taught me a valuable lesson. Some of the best photos you ever take are the ones you have no control over.

 

In the gymnast photo, is there a reason why you cut off her hand and foot?

The football and hoops ones are really solid. The leg in the little league photo hurts it, to me. It is far lesser of a photo than the three kids dropping the ball (which is an awesome shot).

If I was shooting little league, I would go for kids running the bases. I think you could get some great art just shooting them halfway down the line or turning third.

 

Devil - I can answer that.
Schieza loves cutting limbs off in shots. I didn't crop much from the picture, but most of his shots he tends to cut out hands and feet and occasionally parts of heads. There have been many a great shot that was just framed bad. The gymnstics pic was a good example.
At out office we have a 300mm Nikon and a 70-200 Sigma. Schieza uses the 300 more despite my insistsance that the 70-200 is more effective. Somewhen he uses the 300, he cuts things off of people. I just need someone who knows what they're talking about to confirm what I'm saying so he gets it.
I love the 300, but it's really only good for outdoor sports.