High School Boys Soccer

T. Bombadil

My favorite time of year.

Some recent shots below. Hope you like them. I'm just an interested parent, so would love to hear constructive feedback.

Thanks for looking.

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AceCo55

Nice timing ... great sense of "competition"/effort/struggle.
Good sense of movement with ball in air or players off the ground.
Cropping is good and focusses on the action.
#1: I would have straightened up the horizon. You may have deliberately sloped it to the right.
Very crisp/clean images. Nice work.

T. Bombadil

AceCo55 wrote: »

Nice timing ... great sense of "competition"/effort/struggle.
Good sense of movement with ball in air or players off the ground.
Cropping is good and focusses on the action.
#1: I would have straightened up the horizon. You may have deliberately sloped it to the right.
Very crisp/clean images. Nice work.

Thank you for your comments. I didn't straighten the horizon on #1 because I didn't think I had enough room (thought I would lose part of the ball, or hand/arm at right).

After your comment, I tried it leveled - and like it better level. Thanks!

Seefutlung

I like these ... but they almost look staged. I don't see any sweat, or grass stains or dirt or even misplaced hair and no distracting shadows. (I guess the shirt is untucked in a couple of shots, lol.) Did you fill in the shadows with flash?

Keep up the good work,
Gary

jmphotocraft

Great shots. It took me 3 looks before I saw the ball in #1, so I probably wouldn't hang on to that shot if I had taken it. The rest are great examples of the FACT rule of sports photography, which I learned about from someone here. Face, Action, Contact/Conflict, Toy (the toy being the ball in this case). It also looks like you were shooting from a sitting or kneeling height, which is a best practice as it makes the players look like pros. I would say #3 is nicely composed, the rest could be cropped tighter. Good choice to shoot with the lens wide open.

T. Bombadil

Seefutlung wrote: »

I like these ... but they almost look staged. I don't see any sweat, or grass stains or dirt or even misplaced hair and no distracting shadows. (I guess the shirt is untucked in a couple of shots, lol.) Did you fill in the shadows with flash?

Keep up the good work,
Gary

Thanks!

Now that you mention it, these do look a bit sterile. I'll attribute that to being so far north that it isn't all that hot when they play.

No flash in use.

I have noticed lots more flying "dirt" when they play on turf (lots of tiny pieces of black rubber in the air at their feet).

T. Bombadil

jmphotocraft wrote: »

Great shots. It took me 3 looks before I saw the ball in #1, so I probably wouldn't hang on to that shot if I had taken it. The rest are great examples of the FACT rule of sports photography, which I learned about from someone here. Face, Action, Contact/Conflict, Toy (the toy being the ball in this case). It also looks like you were shooting from a sitting or kneeling height, which is a best practice as it makes the players look like pros. I would say #3 is nicely composed, the rest could be cropped tighter. Good choice to shoot with the lens wide open.

Thank you! I hadn't heard it called "FACT" until someone on dgrin mentioned it, but I do attempt to adhere to it (though I tend to share too many that fail the rule with parents, because i think they want to see their child no matter what).

Appreciate the comment about cropping.

jmphotocraft

Personally I avoid sharing too many photos with parents, I think it dilutes how special the real keepers are. But I value good sports photos more than most people. And hi, looks like we're almost neighbors.

T. Bombadil

jmphotocraft wrote: »

Personally I avoid sharing too many photos with parents, I think it dilutes how special the real keepers are. . .

Good instinct. I need to be better at that.

jmphotocraft wrote: »

And hi, looks like we're almost neighbors.

We are neighbors! I'm a bit further north (but not much). Wish we had a game today. Beautiful weather.

wmstumme

Nice work! Seems like everyone else already included all the comments I would have: crop tighter and straighten horizons.

I agree with Jack in that I also tend to only share those photos I feel are worthy--but that acknowledge that it a subjective scale and that I'm often looking for different things than the parents.

Seefutlung

jmphotocraft wrote: »

Personally I avoid sharing too many photos with parents, I think it dilutes how special the real keepers are. But I value good sports photos more than most people. And hi, looks like we're almost neighbors.

Good suggestion. I post way too much mediocre stuff just for the parents and the kids. I guess I'm an ol' softy knowing that while the image doesn't speak well for my photography skills ... the kids, their family and friends will like them. I guess at this stage in my life I haven't anything to prove, so I overpost and dilute the good stuff for the kids.

Gary

T. Bombadil

wmstumme wrote: »

Nice work! Seems like everyone else already included all the comments I would have: crop tighter and straighten horizons.

I agree with Jack in that I also tend to only share those photos I feel are worthy--but that acknowledge that it a subjective scale and that I'm often looking for different things than the parents.

Thanks for commenting. Sharing with parents is tricky (even though in my case it is the reason I have a Smugmug site). I used to put a lot of pressure on myself to get some images of every player. That leads to keeping subpar images - and those tend to stay in the gallery even if higher-quality images are captured at a later date (because who wants to explain why you deleted their son's photo).

This year I'm taking a more laid back approach. I photograph what I can, and if there are players with many images or players with few images, that's life. That is allowing me to be more selective in what I share.

JimKarczewski

#1 is the one that drives me nuts.

Horizons that aren't horizontal. Just like people shooting water that isn't a nice horizontal image. With Lightroom/PS/etc. It's such an easy thing to fix...

T. Bombadil

JimKarczewski wrote: »

#1 is the one that drives me nuts.

Horizons that aren't horizontal. Just like people shooting water that isn't a nice horizontal image. With Lightroom/PS/etc. It's such an easy thing to fix...

Interesting to hear you say that. In a photo of a sporting event, I always (intend to) straighten a nearly level horizon. When they are further from level I sometimes leave them or adjust them to a non-level orientation. I think it (sometimes) makes an image more dynamic. In fact, I sometimes shoot with my camera at approx midway between portrait and landscape orientation - looking for images that will be non-level when finished.

wmstumme

T. Bombadil wrote: »

Interesting to hear you say that. In a photo of a sporting event, I always (intend to) straighten a nearly level horizon. When they are further from level I sometimes leave them or adjust them to a non-level orientation. I think it (sometimes) makes an image more dynamic. In fact, I sometimes shoot with my camera at approx midway between portrait and landscape orientation - looking for images that will be non-level when finished.

I think if you're deliberately going for an angled image, that's one thing. However, unless it's done well, it can just look like an oversight.

T. Bombadil

wmstumme wrote: »

I think if you're deliberately going for an angled image, that's one thing. However, unless it's done well, it can just look like an oversight.

In the case of #1, I wasn't planning for a tilted horizon at the time of capture, but intentionally left it tilted rather than crowd the ball and/or the right-most player's back hand.

It does look better leveled.

jmphotocraft

I think it can work if it's obviously intentional, but even then it's not for everybody.

T. Bombadil

jmphotocraft wrote: »

I think it can work if it's obviously intentional, but even then it's not for everybody.

In your example, I really like it.

JimKarczewski

OK, then I present my 2nd issue with the image. No ball = no context. But that's me...

jmphotocraft

JimKarczewski wrote: »

OK, then I present my 2nd issue with the image. No ball = no context. But that's me...

The ball is there. I know, I had to look 3 times to find it!

T. Bombadil

JimKarczewski wrote: »

OK, then I present my 2nd issue with the image. No ball = no context. But that's me...

Ya, the ball is really lost in that messy background with the guy in white, etc.

Here is the image with level horizon and the background cleared a bit (very roughly done, for discussion purposes only)