I found the photos above paired with this sports article on the Forsyth County News website. The article gives a good play-by-play of everything that happened at a recent baseball game between Forsyth Central High School and Lakeside-Dekalb High School.
Overall, I think it is a well-written article. Its tone is a bit informal, but I think it works. The reporter stays in a light-hearted, fast-paced mode throughout the article which makes it flow from one sentence to the next without a hitch.
The first photo of this package (above: top) is what attracted me to the article. It has a very good composition and is well layered. In the front layer, the photographer captured a good moment of the ball leaving the pitcher's hand and the pitcher's facial expression/body position after pitching.
The second two layers also capture good moments. The umpire has a moment all his own: watching intently as the ball drives toward the batter. The umpire's expression is not decipherable at this distance, but it doesn't really need to be. The viewer can almost feel the tension of the game in his posture.
Finally, in the last layer (opposing team player at the back of image) shows the excitement of the other team. The pitching team in this photograph is Forsyth Central, who lost 8-0. Frustration is captured in the pitcher's face while excitement is captured in the opposing player's body movement.
Overall, very good cropping decisions by both photographer and editor. If any one of these layers had been left out, I don't think the photo would have worked as well.
Also a nice job with framing: The umpire is framed by the angle of the pitcher's arm. All three participants are framed by both the fence posts behind them and the roof of the building in the background.
An example of a similar photo can be found with this article, also by the Forsyth County News. This photo pictures only what would be the first layer in the above photo: the pitcher throwing the ball. Although it captures a good moment as well, the intensity that the second two layers add is missing.
The second image in our original article (above: bottom) is also a good one, but I don't think it works as well. It was a good decision by the editor to make this a secondary photo instead of putting it up front.
I like the moment in the second image--good timing by the photographer. Although it probably wasn't possible at the time, I think the composition could have been better. If the photographer would have moved over to the left a few steps, he would have been able to separate the three players from left to right instead of stacking them in the the photograph--the differences between each of the three players pictured would have then been more discernible.
As it is, the white pants of the three players blend together, making it difficult to tell what the photo represents at first glance. Overall, it was a good decision by all editors and photographers involved to have this as a secondary photo in the package.
Autumn,
ReplyDeleteGood comments on these photos. I like the layering in the top one, too, but, as with a baseball photo in another post, this one has some distracting elements in parts of the frame. The house and the truck in the background take you out of the baseball moment and diminish the drama. There's no way to crop the house out of there, with the ball at the top of the frame, but I bet you could come in from the right a little and make the image bigger so the faces come across better.
Good points on the second photo. It's a little tangled. I like the arm reaching out and the ball connecting with the glove, though.
I really like how you break the photo down in layers. I would not have thought of that. I agree with you about the first photograph and how the various elements make it a strong picture. When you compare it to the other photo of just the one baseball player, you can definitely tell key elements are missing that would make the picture stronger.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the second photo and that it isn't quite as good as the first. But there is something about it I like. I think it might be the mixture of the two teams so close together, as well as how different each players legs are positioned. I am not sure, but something about it is interesting.