Goal? - Livingstonia

Critiques [Translate]

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• peter1892 (3191)
• [2007-01-28 12:07]

It's a spectacular action shot, the goalie diving in vain as the ball shoots past him. Proof that anywhere will do for football, so long as there's space for some goalposts! A good slice of daily life, thanks.

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• parbo (6334)
• [2007-01-28 12:23]

Hi Maciej,

You caught an excellent moment while goal keeper is on air, in action. But seems he couldn’t saved ;) Your position is very nice while adding visitors and players together in your scene. It’s a wonderful scene with blurry ball to. Congratulations.

Best Regards,

Ertugrul

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• Homerhomer (3985)
• [2007-01-28 12:34]

Maciek, not too crazy about this photo, find the cropping at the bottom a bit awkward, just doesn't work visually for me. On the other hand like the action and debth.

The colour and contrast looks a bit dull, but in ps you can enhance it quite a bit, I have dowloaded the photo to quickly play with it, and you will notice when creating a new layer that there are many options for improving the colour and contrast by using multiply, colour burn, overlay and soft light modes in different opacities and combinations. Few minuts of ps work will be worth it.
Peter

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• designsoul (21332)
• [2007-01-28 14:14]

A great one, Maciej, even though you stand quite afar from the happenings, which I usually don't like that much with action shot, here seems important in the actual structure of the shot, with these lovely dark heads looking in the direction of the game at the bottom, the boy standing on the right just "under" the marvellously blurry ball that even that supple goalie cannot evade... great composition, very nicely orchestrated, and surely a decisive moment.
Tc,
sasa

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• m_s_s (1616)
• [2007-01-28 17:02]

again interesting composition and perfect timing. great colors. nice work.
regards

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• Praetzer (1641)
• [2007-01-28 18:15]

Excellent the compo and derived atmosphere. Alfred

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• robiuk (9763)
• [2007-01-28 21:19]

Hey Maciej,
this is better than any common action shot in Sports Illustrated!
Good positioning behind the post and local spectators and a lovely distortion due to short focal length.
Well done!

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• Furachan (0)
• [2007-01-29 3:50]

Beautiful compo,Maciej with your trademark lens now, the 24-105. Love the way the boys at the bottom earth the shot somehow, and the timing of the action.
Superb!
Francis

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• brevbrev14 (19747)
• [2007-01-29 4:23]

Hi MAciej, absolutely a decisive moment!!
i like a lot this scene of football....so different from the football scene of my country...
Beautiful composition with the boys on the bottom!
ciao!
Valeria

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• Darren (6797)
• [2007-01-29 5:27]

Mixed feelings on this Maciek. I think your timing was excellent, but for me we are too separated from the action because of the wide angle. I know that you like working in close with a wider angle, but I think that perhaps stepping back and using a telephoto might have been a better option here. That way, you could still have lined the bottom of the frame with the spectators, but the stacked perspective due to a longer focal length would have made the game seem less distant I think. The moment you caught is just perfect, that is for certain.

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• Luko (13481)
• [2007-01-29 6:46]
• [2]

Timing is good and composition is flawless as usual (a big thank to the goal frames... which btw reminds me the dirt football field I was playing at when I was a kid in Southern Pacific).

The widely commented spectators in the bottom of the image are a nice addition to me, no less, no more, I feel ok with your crop. It closes the bottom of the frame, inputs context without distracting too much, also we're quite inside the action and that's good, all in all.

.. but what really bothers me is the dullness of the pic, like there was no light at all, although the sky looks promising. I agree with Peter saying that you should have done something in Pshop, I also think a gneral "cloudy sky" balance would have helped.
There also something about you settings : I think you had plenty of DoF, so you had better set up your speed faster than it was in order to freeze the ball. I would have prefered it less blurry and brighter, like a highly recognizable icon in every field of the world : the hero of this picture is THE FOOTBALL, so what's the purpose of blurring it?
(Although for the brightness part, you could still use the history brush in Pshop).

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• sohrab (7405)
• [2007-01-29 8:14]

this is too common a composition, if you wanna talk about it like that...
on magnum and all... seen lots of black and white photographs with a similar frame.. but there's usually something interesting happening.. something that gives more depth to the photograph.. something that adds a certain situation to the game.
take care :)

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• fixed (3815)
• [2007-02-01 11:59]

hello Maciej
a nice "soft" decisive moment again
agree with Luko and Sorab ... can be better with a better light and photoshop processing ...
in any case, a nice one
Arnaud