Light showers at the Pop Warner football scrimmage

It has too much attention on the back ground ,the people with the umbrellas are all on the same plane, you could have chosen a very wide aperture, and done this in B/W, might have worked better. Just my 0.02 cents.

You know, Tony, that I enjoy a lot of your work. But it's a real stretch to find something appealing with this one. If I could see the faces of the folks watching the action, it might help increase my interest level. As it is, I find the image rather bland....not from a technical viewpoint ( nicely exposed, etc., etc. ) but the shot just doesn't draw me into the experience.

Having nothing to do with your image here, I kind of regret that this forum changed to " Documentary ". I'm well aware of all the issues, and associated conflicts, folks had about what was being posted to the forum when it was " Street / PJ ". With that said, though, there was at least some minimal effort to keep submissions centered around the forum name. As it is now, A great deal of postings to this forum should be over in " Other Cool Shots " and some should even be " Landscapes " or other places. This forum just seems to have been diluted into something that has no sense of direction .... no real identity of its own. Maybe that's what most people want.

Originally Posted by black mamba You know, Tony, that I enjoy a lot of your work. But it's a real stretch to find something appealing with this one. If I could see the faces of the folks watching the action, it might help increase my interest level. As it is, I find the image rather bland....not from a technical viewpoint ( nicely exposed, etc., etc. ) but the shot just doesn't draw me into the experience. Having nothing to do with your image here, I kind of regret that this forum changed to " Documentary ". I'm well aware of all the issues, and associated conflicts, folks had about what was being posted to the forum when it was " Street / PJ ". With that said, though, there was at least some minimal effort to keep submissions centered around the forum name. As it is now, A great deal of postings to this forum should be over in " Other Cool Shots " and some should even be " Landscapes " or other places. This forum just seems to have been diluted into something that has no sense of direction .... no real identity of its own. Maybe that's what most people want.

I agree with you about this image,but it is still about photography, I will decline to disagree with you about the the rest.

Regarding both comments....

No, it's not a great, or even good, shot.

However, I didn't choose to show people. I did shoot this group from the front and
found it uninteresting. The background identifies the scene as parents watching a
Pop Warner scrimmage in a light rain. The subject isn't the people; it's what the
people are doing. Without the background, you don't know what they're doing.

I chose color because of the different colors of the umbrellas.

Originally Posted by black mamba Having nothing to do with your image here, I kind of regret that this forum changed to " Documentary ". I'm well aware of all the issues, and associated conflicts, folks had about what was being posted to the forum when it was " Street / PJ ". With that said, though, there was at least some minimal effort to keep submissions centered around the forum name. As it is now, A great deal of postings to this forum should be over in " Other Cool Shots " and some should even be " Landscapes " or other places. This forum just seems to have been diluted into something that has no sense of direction .... no real identity of its own. Maybe that's what most people want.

I agree somewhat, and see far too many images that don't document anything.
Some of my submissions, too, although I do feel this one documents a typical
scene that a lot of parents and grandparents (me) are involved in.

What is "documentary" if not to document life as we see it and participate in
it? There's a line between documenting "life as we see it" and snapshots of
what we see, but the critiques usually point that out emphatically.


I kinda gave up on "Other Cool Shots". I don't get critiques there like you and
Lensmole have furnished here. Most of what I see there are compliments on
images and "bumps" from excessive "Thank you for looking" comments. If
you don't tell me something about my image that I don't see - as you two have
done here - then I don't learn anything.

What I choose to post here is "Look what I saw", but what I'm looking for
here is "How you saw what I presented".

Also, I don't feel the majority of regulars in "Other Cool Shots" are looking
for critiques. They just want to show off their images. That's fine, and it's
good to have a forum for that. It's just not what I'm looking for.

Originally Posted by TonyCooper Regarding both comments.... No, it's not a great, or even good, shot. However, I didn't choose to show people. I did shoot this group from the front and found it uninteresting. The background identifies the scene as parents watching a Pop Warner scrimmage in a light rain. The subject isn't the people; it's what the people are doing. Without the background, you don't know what they're doing. I chose color because of the different colors of the umbrellas.

I considered this,however I really can't tell what it is the athletes are doing apart from participating in a sporting activity of some kind.The image does convey people watching something ,for me the image is more about the juxtaposition of the odd umbrella and the shapes of them,and the people watching. This is how I see this image, to me the people in the background are irrelevant,but the people have to be watching something and I think this would have still been apparent to the audience had their been more of a bokeh effect .

Originally Posted by lensmole I considered this,however I really can't tell what it is the athletes are doing apart from participating in a sporting activity of some kind.The image does convey people watching something ,for me the image is more about the juxtaposition of the odd umbrella and the shapes of them,and the people watching. This is how I see this image, to me the people in the background are irrelevant,but the people have to be watching something and I think this would have still been apparent to the audience had their been more of a bokeh effect .

Gotta laugh, Lensmole, if you can't tell if these are football players. It doesn't
really make a difference, though, what sport is involved. It's parents watching their
kids engaged in a sport.

But...I'm not one not to take a suggestion. Here's the image in B&W with the background
blurred. Hard to do in post getting the grass to blur out in a uniform progression, but
you should be able to get the idea. To me, it doesn't work.

I cropped it to remove the far left umbrella. That becomes too blobby in b&W.

Originally Posted by TonyCooper Gotta laugh, Lensmole, if you can't tell if these are football players. It doesn't really make a difference, though, what sport is involved. It's parents watching their kids engaged in a sport. But...I'm not one not to take a suggestion. Here's the image in B&W with the background blurred. Hard to do in post getting the grass to blur out in a uniform progression, but you should be able to get the idea. To me, it doesn't work. I cropped it to remove the far left umbrella. That becomes too blobby in b&W.

Well I can recognize a good idea from a bad one ,and I don't mind admitting that I have had bad ideas before and probably will again in the future, Thanks for showing this to me, I can't recall anyone, ever showing me one of my bad ideas in B/W.

Originally Posted by black mamba there was at least some minimal effort to keep submissions centered around the forum name. As it is now, A great deal of postings to this forum should be over in " Other Cool Shots " and some should even be " Landscapes " or other places. This forum just seems to have been diluted into something that has no sense of direction .... no real identity of its own. Maybe that's what most people want.

I agree.

The name might have been changed to avert disagreements. As of recently that might not have worked. We may just have some argumentative folks on the forum that argue when there is no absolute right or wrong.

Has the content become less interesting? In my, view yes.

But I still come to visit. This forum has allowed me to become more tolerant of people in my images, which I avoided like the plague in my stuff.

Additionally I can credit this place with a mispost of an architectural shot of India, that inspired me to go to Havana (same type of architecture) & lately a planned trip to India and Nepal. I haven't given up my sports stuff (next week - Americas Cup & Polo, week after - Reno balloon Races & stadium motorcycles - November - Baja desert races). yeah I'm an avid amateur.

So I can be thankful to this joint and it's much appreciated.

But there are just a few posters that have value to ME. Most of the stuff I can comment negatively on (I'm pretty particular), but I refrain from doing it & pass.

That said, who am I to comment on someone elses style? Trying to "teach" someone your style may not be the best lesson for them. People have the right to be great.... or mediocre - on their own & we as teachers may well be that. Technical aspects are different, but can have a stylistic slant.

How am I doing? Wordy enough?...

Tony,

I like the concept of parents watching their kids play sports. It sure is a common sight. The lady on the left holding up "two" adds a bit of visual interest. Since you mentioned rain in your text, I must admit to not quite seeing the rain. I think the noise in the image is making it difficult to see any raindrops on the umbrellas? I must also admit to feeling a bit off balance with the kinda-diagonal line created by the chairs.

Perhaps a higher vantage point would create that nice gap between the players and the parents/grandparents watching the game. I can understand the idea of the shot. Not strongly presented but I dig it.

I like the shot in color. The blur in BW looks phony. I like that you cropped out the black umbrella on the left. Is it bland? Yes but I don't think it should be categorized as a bad shot.

Originally Posted by PhotoDavid78 I like the shot in color. The blur in BW looks phony. I like that you cropped out the black umbrella on the left. Is it bland? Yes but I don't think it should be categorized as a bad shot.

Yes, the blur is phony. The original was Photoshopped with Gaussian blur
on the background with the foreground painted clear using a Layer Mask.
It was an exercise responding to Lensmole's suggestion. The problem is
that the grass doesn't evenly blur out. I did state this earlier.