Project 52 Q1 Week 6: Action portraiture

[billtils]

For all sorts of reasons I was not able to get out and about with the camera this week** (or even do any studio shots) but was able to spend some evening hours re-visiting some recent library shots. This is one that intrigues me as it combines 2 of my favourite genres: portraits and "things that move" although the latter are usually BIF or motor bikes/cars.

This is a crop from a larger shot of a field of runners about 5 meters from the finish line of a 100 meter footrace. I found it difficult to decide on whether to capture the field or to concentrate on the personality of a few of the competitors.





** One of the reasons is the time that has had to be spent on getting ready for our visit to Western Australia, departing on Sunday. Ever the optimist, I hope that Week 7 will feature some new, Antipodean, images

[Shadowman]

I like the concept, if you were to isolate one figure and remove his environment you could concentrate solely on the universal recognition of expressions; is he smiling, grimacing, sad, etc.

[Geoff F]

Looks good to me. Picking out one or two main subjects from a crowd is never easy but in this case having other people gradually fading into the background puts everything into context and clearly shows this is a race.

[Manfred M]

I always find shots like this one very difficult to pull off as there are clearly two potential subjects here, which would make two separate, strong images.

1.






2.




I just find that the two runners are not close enough to make a single strong image and the viewer's eyes dart between the two runners out front.

[billtils]

Thanks for taking time to look at this and comment on it Manfred. Yes, there is too much separation between the 2 but I was trying to capture #66 overtaking #128 to win the race. However, I like your first alternative version best of all the ones I've tried.