skating

rom4n301 · Aug 22, 2009

a few recent skate shots from Philly/NJ

crits??

rom4n301 · Aug 22, 2009

for larger images please visit my flickr..

Derrel · Aug 22, 2009

I think you are too far away from your main subject, the skateboarder, in each of the above three photos. On the last photo, for example, it would have been interesting to se that large, red rectangular sculpture as the background for the skateboarder, with you laying on your back and shooting from maybe 10 feet away, with the skateboarder doing the slide on the other brick wall, over near the sculpture.

In the first photo, of him doing the jump, the power pole and lines and blue sky and white clouds in the upper right corner are very distracting, and the skateboarder occupies maybe only five percent of the frame. I think you need to get MUCH closer, and maybe also use a bit longer focal length, to get a more narrow angle of view behind the subject.

Also, I notice that each photo is a side view of your boarder--a view where we can see his face would be much more engaging...seeing the concentration, or the strain on his face, would be good. I bet you guys have a couple of skateboarding magazines somewhere around the house, right? Why not take a shot from the magazine and see if you can analyze it and re-create the same type of shot....focal length (roughly), camera positioning (low-high-close-far with telephoto), and lighting (backlight + strobe fill, low-light ambient + second-curtain rear synch + slow 1/4 second shutter speed), and so on, right down the line.

While your skater buddy is nowhere near Tony Hawk's skill level, there's no reason you can't look at some photos that have been made of Hawk, and try and imitate/emulate the shots done by top shooters of the top 'boarders.

rom4n301 · Aug 22, 2009

thanks for the crits!!! i do agree im too far away in these shots as far as lighting goes.. im down to only one stobe right now cuz one of my p.o.s. cactus receivers decided to break on me.. but w.e....