Allez!, a photo from Ile-de-France, North

Photographer's Note

I went to the first professional tennis tournament of my life while I was in Paris last year: the Paris Bercy Masters 1000. Except for the absence of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, all the other players on the top of the ranking were there. It was an interesting experience. There is a main court for which you buy a numbered seat and you can also enter the other two smaller courts, such as the one on the picture. This is Juan Mónaco playing against Grigor Dimitrov, if I am not mistaken. I rotated the shot, increased contrast and saturated slightly and finally resized.

As I had to wait to be able to buy the ticket, I walked around the area and found and interesting small garden named in honor of Yitzhak Rabin (if my memory does not fail me) with an interesting photography exposition called "Des légumes et des hommes". I also saw the interesting modern building of the Cinémathèque française (I'll try to include pictures of these two).

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Critiques | Translate

batalay (32858) 2013-01-26 7:44

Superb action shot of the player having just hit a forehand, and the streak made by the ball. Since you provide the shutter speed (1/50 sec) it would be simple to calculate how fast that ball is traveling (the streak appears to be about 0.4 m), but that would be boring. The beauty of the shot is in the blur of the ball and the racket head, the color resolution... You had a spectacular seat.

As a serious player in my youth, I can personally appreciate the photograph for another reason. We were coached to always keep the feet planted, the difficulty of controlling a top spin, to wear only whites in serious competition... But now the players get so much more power, they control the top spin, they play the full court, and they can wear anything they want. All white was boring, but the alternative was not even considered!

Warm regards,

Bulent