South – January 2019 – Sports Feature

Judges Comments

There were a lot of really good "almosts" in this category, but we were drawn to photos that showed a little extra effort and vision on the part of the photographer. The Cowboys huddle/hype photo showed us the photographer going the extra step to get in tight in an NFL environment that isn't always that inviting for an emotionally-charged image. The cheerleader taking a selfie photo also showed someone was looking outside the lines for an interesting image. Beautiful light and framing (could have used a slight crop off the left side) but overall a nice clean image. The photo of PJ Tucker stood out from other images of reacting athletes because it was very clean and showed his emotion straight away. We generally stayed away from photos of athletes reacting in this category since it's kind of a gimme, but the photo of Tucker kept us coming back.

Judges: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle, Scott Sommerdorf/Freelance, Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle