Recent Sports Photos - feedback appreciated

I've just started to dabble a bit more seriously in sports photography. I'd appreciate any feedback from all you photogs out there on a couple of my recent images.

A bit of soccer and cricket attached!

Outstanding! I'm a huge fan of soccer and cricket. I'm particularly struck by cricket shot #1, that couldn't have been done better. What camera? Lens? Were you on the sidelines for these shots? Great job!

Very nice--shots are very "stacked," by which I mean its not just a photo of something happening in two dimentions. If the paper covered soccer and cricket these'd be very much usable photos. Really the only thing I can critique is the position on the ball on the last on is a bit distracting--seems outta place or something, especially seemingly touching his head

Thanks chaps for your comments. The ball is a little too close to the players head in the second cricket pic I have to agree... I used a 10d with 300mm 2.8 (for soccer) and 2x converter (for cricket). I shot from the sidelines, perched on my stool for all these pics - the soccer ones using a monopod and the cricket ones with the lens mounted on a tripod... the play doesn't move that fast in cricket!

Thanks for posting here at the Critique Forum.
Your stuff is AWESOME! You have a knack for these sports.
Your composition and timing are excellent!
Your cricket images are superburb and show this unusal sport very well!
Brian

Really excellent. I looked at them twice and couldn't find anything to suggest.

Thanks for your kind words folks... your enthusiasm for the pics has inspired me to post a couple more... I hope this is the right thing to do! I am now looking forward to some new challenges, including the return of professional basketball to Essex later in the year... should be most intriguing.

I wonder who's deciding what's going to be a featured photo, because I have strong doubts about his/her decisions.

The featured shot is a good shot, I really like it, but it has one problem; the ball. Not only I think that, even others have expressed this, so why make it a featured shot? That doesn't make sense. :confused:
I do think it would be a shot worth to be featured if that ball wasn't in the wrong place.

If you pick a shot, pick one of the other cricket shots, because I've seen some really good ones.

A while back we had this "drive thru" shot with the guy's hand leaning out of the window. It was a good shot, but it was lacking something (several people mentioned this) and even the photographer agreed, so why feature it?

See, don't get me wrong, it's not that I want one of my favorite shots to be featured, no I think that we should feature a shot of which most members agree that it's a good shot with nothing substantially wrong. Now I get the impression that one person is making his own personal decision which is not a reflection of the overall view of most members.
We call ourselves a community, so why is it that a single person decides what's going to be featured? :confused:

I have no negative intentions, I just prefer that we credit those photos that DO deserve credit as reflected by the comments of majority of our members.

I would suggest to follow a totally different approach. Why not use votes/poll? Maybe we should have a sticky in which members can post their favorite at the end of the month?
See it as an extra challenge, it inspires people. Maybe members have other suggestions and if they do, it would be great to share these ideas.

Just my $0,02

I have to say I am very proud to have a shot featured in this forum. It is certainly a good feeling and will get me taking even more photos of cricket - weather permitting - unlike the footballers, these guys don't play in the rain!

It is not really for me to comment on which of my pictures should be featured (if any). All the pics I have posted I am quite pleased with in one way or another... and I posted them to be critiqued by a wider audience, whether the feedback was good or bad.

However, I have to say that I do agree with JoeD's idea of a voting process - a monthly 'sticky' vote to decide the featured pic could be a real winner!

Yeah, I agree, a monthy sticky would be a nice addition in my opinion

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Originally Posted by JoeD

I would suggest to follow a totally different approach. Why not use votes/poll? Maybe we should have a sticky in which members can post their favorite at the end of the month?
See it as an extra challenge, it inspires people. Maybe members have other suggestions and if they do, it would be great to share these ideas.

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Joe-
I think letting the community decide on a Featured Photo is a good idea. How to do that might be a problem. But I'm interested in trying to make it happen. To be fair to Brian, he puts a lot of effort into choosing Featured Photos. It's a time consuming process. Since this is a Photo Critique forum, they're not neccesarily all about the quality of the photo, either. There are other considerations. But I think letting the community decide is a good idea. If anyone has any other thoughts on this, I'd like to hear them.

Actually, can you post a new thread, Joe? I think this subject deserves its own discussion.

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Originally Posted by JoeD

I wonder who's deciding what's going to be a featured photo, because I have strong doubts about his/her decisions.
-Clip-

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Gmen, I'm sorry to be using your thread of well timed sports photos for this discussion.

This is a Critique forum, not a Perfect Photo forum, and I think it's natural to feature a photo that shows what the forum is about as well as be something that will show up well in the thumbnail.
Besides that, I think that since Brian is doing the work of the moderator here it should be his prerogative.
If one is needed, I'd suggest that a Photo of the Month popularity contest be held in a seperate area.
Thanks Brian for doing the work you do.

Hi Gmen

Really excellent photo's !! I think just to be able to have captured the cricket ball in action is great ! Specially if one think at what speed those fast bowlers can bowl !
Here in South-Africa rugby and cricket is my favourite sport . Hope you would be able to get a few nice ones when South-Africa takes on England the end of the year !!

And the one of the soccerplayer in the air is also excellent .

Hope you will post more of your photos !!
Regards
james

Had a little fun just concentrating on the bowlers today and came up with these ones... poetry in motion?

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Originally Posted by gmen

Had a little fun just concentrating on the bowlers today and came up with these ones... poetry in motion?

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Fun Pics. You really catch the critical moment in a lot of your shots.

I'm reading "Carribean" by James A. Michener right now and he uses a few names for the throws (bowls?) the bowlers use like 'googly' and 'left handed chinamen' without explaining them. Any idea wht they might be like? I know nothing at all about cricket and am amazed at the high scores and was surprised to read that matches might be planned to extend over 4 or 5 days.

Well... it's all to do with 'spin bowling'. Some bowlers impart some 'spin' on the ball when they are bowling with a flick or the wrist and/or fingers. Therefore when the ball hits the ground in front of the batsman it will bounce to the right or the left depending on the direction of the 'spin'.

A googly is a delivery that a (right-handed) batsman expects to bounce to the left (as he looks at it coming towards him) but in fact it bounces to the right. This is because the (right-handed) bowler has deceived him with his wrist/finger action.

The chinaman is a simply a googly bowled by a left-handed bowler.

Simple eh? hmmmm....

Here's some stuff from today involving the 'wicketkeeper'.

The first pic is a 'stumping' and the second is the 'keeper taking a tumble.

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Originally Posted by gmen

Simple eh? hmmmm....

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Yeah, simple. I think I'll stick with baseball. :D
Thanks for the lesson.

Just spotted that this thread has passed 1,000 viewings... thought it polite to thank everyone for looking.

Cheers all!

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Originally Posted by gmen

Just spotted that this thread has passed 1,000 viewings... thought it polite to thank everyone for looking.

Cheers all!

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Part of that comes from being the "featured photo", they get traffic from the main page.
Part of it comes from the quality of the images too.
I see you have added quite a few images along the way.
Good Stuff!
Brian

Thanks Brian... it's a pleasure being part of the forum.

I am glad you are a part of this community.
I hope you learn all that you can from it!
Regards,
Brian