Photo Assignment #59: Action (ENTRY)

Use this thread for posting your single entry for Assignment #59: "Action".

Camera phone, point & shoot, DSLR, or even film; all shooters are welcome. For this assignment there are no limitations on photographic techniques or post processing.

All forum posting rules apply.

Your photograph has to have been taken between now & Monday July 4th at midnight.

Please refrain from commenting on photographs (yours and others) in this thread until after the winner has been selected. Any comments posted prior to the announcement of a winner will be deleted without warning.

Photographs should stand on their own for your interpretation of "Action".

You may post only one entry, but you may change it any time until July 4th, 2011 at midnight.

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Here's my cell phone pic entry

This is Paul Glaves' Entry:

First off, thanks for participating in this assignment. "Action" can take many forms, thus the variety of interpretations. So here goes.

NUTT-
I liked the concept, almost a "Lights, Camera, Action" kind of approach. I'm not normally a fan of cropping people above the knees - preferring to leave them whole or fairly tight crop at the chest. Yet with "Junior" down there I think this actually worked well. Nice use of DOF (f/1.8) to try and minimize the homes/fence in the background as much as possible. Image is sharp and a good range of tones. As much as you used a shallow DOF, I do find the background homes a bit distracting or out of place. And possibly a flash might have made the colors pop a bit more on what I presume was a cloudy or overcast day. If you have Lightroom or some other post product, possibly the use of desaturate/declarify the background to make the subjects stand out more might have helped there.

BrotherJ -
Great exposure for what are always difficult shots to nail. Pools and water/reflection shots are indeed a challenge and you did well with this one. The use of that screaming shutter speed to freeze the water in big chunks was a good call. Yet the person in the top left is distracting and generally quartering away shots don't do a subject justice. Especially with that photogenic daughter of yours whom I always look forward to the facial expressions.

Voni -
The "interaction" of what I presume to be Dad with his daughter was immediately apparent. That's one proud Dad. I like the color range and exposure appear to be good for this image for all but the top right. Recognizing impromptu shots are always tough to get all the aspects right, this one does well with a few nits to include the car is somewhat distracting there and the trunk deck growing from her head. Also, the quartering away angle doesn't allow the child's face to really be shown. With two opposing subjects, that's a challenge to begin with for anyone. I also wondered what the photographer is focusing on, almost to the point of being out of place, or just possibly waiting for movement to occur in that empty area.

B. Wade -
Nothing spells out Action like a good horse race. I like the attempt at trying to shoot this since we've seen so very little (if any) here. I like the angle of the shot against the riders, quartering to the photographer worked well. Nice colors and exposure throughout the image. The left rider with the crop up and in a movement to use it also suggests Action. Yet the focus is soft again. I'm starting to think your camera may have an issue with the zoom focus as I can't really see where the focal point is in the image. The whole thing appears soft/out of focus to me. And one little thing, the lead horse is sprouting a fountain out of their head. Little things like that will typically put a picture in the trashcan for most. I'm sure you shot many others, so maybe go back and look for one composed without that 'feature'. While you're at it, see if there are two horses fairly close, possibly overlapping one another, then crop that tight to see how it looks.

Squeaky -
Lots of things 'jumped' at me on this one. First, for a camera phone I think the exposure was pretty good for those difficult water shots. Shooting late afternoon/early evening also helped this one in a lot of ways to cool the highlights down. I like the way the stair rail bounds the bottom and the tree and canopy on the right/top doing the same. I like the angle of the shadow of the platform. All that works for the shot and the only other comment is that the subject is really quite far away to make it readily noticeable what's going on. Zooming in would then eliminate all the framing components that make it a good shot. That's the problem with shots like this.

achesley -
First, what's all that green stuff under the dog? We have similar things here, but it's all brown. The dog certainly has interest in something, but that's not readily apparent to me. I like the color range and this is a good example for use of the 'rule of thirds' that worked well. I like the way the dog was also captured supporting itself with one paw. I kind of would have liked to see the top of the hose cart in the image as well, to complete it if you will...

M38A1 -
I was trying to capture the interaction of the gunner, shell casings and muzzle flash. Yet the M60 spits out the bottom so cases weren't flying leaving only the gunner and muzzle flash. The legs are distracting as well.

Paul G -
A different approach to Action, more on the 'soothing' side. I like the log and how it leads you much the same as the split or "Y" of the water to the juncture. I think the use of a slow shutter speed and fairly shallow DOF lends itself to capturing the movement of the stream. I assume this was in a shaded area, so the colors would be muted as they are presented.

The difficult part of the critique is choosing one over another as there can only be one winner. So with that I have to go with Pauls entry. I believe the assignment criteria of subject, framing, lighting, depth of field, and exposure as a package were all met with his entry.

Again, thanks for submitting for this assignment and I can't wait to see what Paul has in store for us.

Paul - you're on deck!
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I really liked that water shot of Paul's also. Love the flow of the water around, over and though the branches.

The shot on the dog was a very quick, see it, shoot it. No time for angle adjustment or framing. I wasn't even looking at the view finder, just point and shoot from the hip to the true sense of the word. A lot of luck and a small bit of processing did the rest.

Thanks,

We are on the road but I'll get the next assignment up this evening. Mine was shot when Voni suggested it would make a good "action" photo. I was mostly shooting scenery at that moment, as we walked around the campground.

Voni's needs the story to have it's full impact. The rider is Alex Harper. He had just finished riding the 11 day Iron Butt Rally. He returned to the finish about half a day early because it was his daughter's first birthday and he didn't want to miss all of it. The photo was shot just as he got off his bike at the rally finish line.

Great pics. PGlaves water almost looks like smoke or fog.

All my pics at the horse track kinda sucked. My entry pic was the closest I came to winning a race. I bet the Trifecta Box for horse 4-6-1. You can see 4 & 1 in the pic 6 came in next to last.