Sports Illustrated
by
RiderGalComment by DrJOnes: Greetings from the Critique Club.
Congratulations on your firt place at this challenge.
I must admit, I am not the best person to crtitique this photo. I personally am not a very big fan of sports photos, and basketball bores me to death. Never the less, I can still look at this photo and see its good points.
Technicaly, it's very well done. Excellent use of shallow depth of field, bringing the attention to the players in the foreground. The movemement of the players is very well captured too. You have nice obliques going on there, from bottom left to top right. This makes this shot very dynamic. It's quite a PLUS to have no other playres in the background. I assume they must be near the net... :-)
I understand you kept the crop quite large to acocmodate the title and all. But I personally think the crop could be a lot closer, focusing onthe two main players. They have such a dynamic energy glowing around these two, it would be fantastic to crop the photo closer to them. It would probably still work with a magzine title, like they usually do (cover part of the title with the models/players heads).
Nice use of Neat Image (you must have used it, right? After all, you shot at ISO 800... there should be more noise in there at 800. If not, then wow! You got a fantastic camera!). Very nice colors and all.
All in all, a well executed sports journalism shot.
Message edited by author 2003-06-18 18:03:05. 
Photographer found comment helpful.