Reach For the Sky



Bill Frakes took a great photo of Candace Parker, a female basketball player.    This photo shows her athleticism, strength, and courage.  It looks as if Parker is reaching for her goal and has accomplished it.  The photo demonstrates what she is capable of doing.  When Parker is on the basketball court, she jumps really high.  It seems as if she is almost touching the sky.   I like how she is poised. The background is really nice with the clouds in the sky.  More light is on Parker.  The light on Parker makes one focus on her more in the picture.  Even though the background is so beautiful, it is not what stands out the most. 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0703/gallery.canon.frakes/content.3.html

Museum Idea

After Erik brought up Erwitt’s idea about photographing people viewing art in art museum’s, I started thinking about where I work.  I work at MOCRA, the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art.  I have many opportunities to watch people looking at the art we have on exhibit.  I have also worked at an arts center that included multiple art galleries, so I have been fortunate enough to watch many people and the ways in which they view art.  We just put up a new exhibit featuring Georges Rouault’s Miserere et Guerre: The Complete Series of Etchings.  It’s a great exhibit, I encourage you to stop by to see the art and maybe photograph some other viewers of this art.  All viewers are not created equal.

SPAIN. Madrid. 1995. Prado Museum.

I also found this picture by Elliott Erwitt that must be included in his museum project.  I also remember seeing these paintings by Goya in the Prado during my stay in Spain.  The composition of this piece is great and the juxtaposition between both sets of viewers is funny.  At first glance, you see a group of viewers.  However, a closer look allows the real message to come across.  The only woman in the photograph is viewing the clothed version of the painting while a bunch of men choose to view the nude version of the painting.  I think the message of this picture is pretty funny and self-explanatory.  It is neat that he was able to capture a such a telling photograph of such a mundane task.

Archery

I found this picture on The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. I taught archery at a summer camp for a few summers, so archery as a sport has always interested me. This picture was taken at an individual ranking round for the Olympics. I find this picture fascinating because there is the human element, but the people are not the one’s in focus. This picture shows that there is an interest in archery, even though it is not one of the more popular sports. I think that most archery pictures are not shots of a group of archers, and are generally shot from behind looking down the arrow towards the target. Don’t get me wrong, that is a great photo, but this change of scenery is nice. When taking pictures of sports, i go towards the classic shots that everyone takes, so for this blog I was looking for an inspiration on different angels.

America’s Best Women’s Karate Athlete- Elisa Au Fonseca

Elisa Au Fonseca is a national and world champion in women’s karate. She is my idol and also my biggest competition. I have been involved in karate since I was four. I won junior nationals several times in both kata and kumite. I have competed in Jr. World Championship and placed top 8 in all my divisions. In 2008 I competed in the women’s adult division and tied for 3rd in both kata and -60kg kumite. However due to multiple knee injuries and personal set backs have not competed since then. After three years of not competing I have just started the difficult journey to get back into “competition” shape and practicing at least three hours a day until summer in which I will begin to practice 8 hours a day 6-7 days a week.

I look to this photograph for inspiration. I see Elisa Au Fonseca at the top of the world in this image. I am used to seeing photographs of athlete in competition and training in their dojo. It is refreshing to see Elisa practicing her art and sport in nature.  I always dreamed of going to the Olympics however karate was not voted in in 2009 for the 2016 Olympics in London.  Even though my Olympic dreams will probably never be actualized I will always have a passion for karate and look up to Elisa as role model.

Start Spreading the News…

Full disclosure: I was born and raised in New York and have been a Yankees fan all my life. So, part of my reasoning in picking this picture is that I, in true Yankee fan fashion, enjoy being a jerk about how kick-butt my team is in an effort to antagonize the Cardinals/Cubs fans I come in contact with. But that of course is not my only reason.

My real reason for choosing this photo is that it is a fairly good example of waiting for the right moment to make a picture. And this moment is perfect, especially given the context. This shot was taken during a game against the Boston Red Sox. For those who don’t know, there is something of an epic rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox. When the two play each other, things get a little tense, which means things actually get interesting (despite my love of the Yankees, I cannot lie that baseball is one of the most boring sports to watch. But it is better than golf. Watching golf is the worst. But I digress…). This was game three of a three game series in 2004, and the Yankees were going for the sweep. The game was in extra innings at this point, so things were awesome tension wise. So top of the 12^th, Boston has two outs, when Trot Nixon hit to the left, just behind third base. If the ball had dropped, Boston would have scored, surely ending the game and destroying the sweep. So Derek Jeter ran from shortstop and dove for the ball, flying over the photographers’ pit and landing in the stands. He made the catch, but got so banged up from his spectacular play that he had to leave the game. The Yankees went on to win the game and swept the series against Boston.

This picture has become iconic for Yankees fans. The photographer who took it not only managed to capture Jeter airborne, but captured Alex Rodriguez’s shock and the ump calling it a fair ball. It is an excellent sports action shot of a particularly rare occurrence that, with proper context, tells the story and expresses the atmosphere of that game quite accurately. I would have loved it if the photographer Jeter is jumping over had managed to get a shot of this, but I think this other photo is a pretty decent example of sports photojournalism. It tells the story and is something interesting. It works.

Go Yankees.

 

Sports

Bill Martin, Sports Illustrated Website

As I was scanning through the Pictures of the Week on SI.com, this photo caught my attention right off the bat. First off, I was a little surprised to see horse racing on the Sports Illustrated website at all. I always figured they were a magazine dedicated to main-stream sports with little to do with those not as popular. The thing that most caught my attention about this photo, however, was the angle. It almost looks as if Bill Martin, the photographer, was inches away from being trampled by the horses. Martin definitely caught the moment as he clicked the shutter just as those horses were in mid-stride. Such a fleeting moment struck me and as I looked at this photo I knew the moment only lasted a split second before the horses galloped past guided by the jockeys. I can see where taking lots of photos at once would be extra helpful in situations like these. The punctum of this photo, for me, is all the dirt and residue flying towards the camera. That small detail adds just a little something extra and really intensifies the scene.