The top finishers just jumped right out at us. Great faces, clean compositions, storytelling moments, those are what resonate. Too many of these photos were sports-adjacent, which is fine, if they then also have the other traits. It’s not enough for a sports feature photo to simply be celebration or dejection, or be a non-action photo. We were delighted to discover that the player at the focus of both our first and second finishers was the same, and yet such different moments taken a week apart. The moment that took first eked out that position by merit of the great light and texture. Second place was just a great moment, a great face, nicely composed and framed. Third place was a perfect example of that sports adjacent feature. The situation is a sports team, but the moment is not the typical game-reaction, but rather a sports team engaged in that classic slice of life moment. This image could have won in feature-single maybe, but we apprecitated that it was sports-related and stood out from all but those first two finishers. A baseball celebration photo with a spectacular home run celebration face was a strong contender just out of the top three.
Judges:
Sean D. Elliot/The Day, Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
Judges Comments
The top finishers just jumped right out at us. Great faces, clean compositions, storytelling moments, those are what resonate. Too many of these photos were sports-adjacent, which is fine, if they then also have the other traits. It’s not enough for a sports feature photo to simply be celebration or dejection, or be a non-action photo. We were delighted to discover that the player at the focus of both our first and second finishers was the same, and yet such different moments taken a week apart. The moment that took first eked out that position by merit of the great light and texture. Second place was just a great moment, a great face, nicely composed and framed. Third place was a perfect example of that sports adjacent feature. The situation is a sports team, but the moment is not the typical game-reaction, but rather a sports team engaged in that classic slice of life moment. This image could have won in feature-single maybe, but we apprecitated that it was sports-related and stood out from all but those first two finishers. A baseball celebration photo with a spectacular home run celebration face was a strong contender just out of the top three.