**VOTING- Best of 2007 photo contest**

With the contest ending today it is now time to vote. Voting will commence as follows:

Vote for your favorite three photos in no ranking order. Just list the names of the photographers of your three favorite pictures. To keep it simple, list the first screen name of the photographer (for example, I would be "A.P.)

Listing just your votes is perfectly acceptable. Because we are here to learn, if you want to comment why you liked or didn't like photo, feel free to do so. But keep the comments constructive. Explain why you didn't like a particular photo or what really appealed to you about the photo.

Let's say voting will end this Saturday at noon PST.

The link for the photos is here
http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/87667/530686.html?1199739595

Scott A
Shelby Daniel
Joe Umali

Scott A
Shelby Daniel
Joe Umali

Russell
Joe
Shelby

Scott A
Joe Umali
WCW

Shelby Daniel
Scott A.
Joe Umali

Ryan Taylor
JL
Bakes

Scott A
Joe Umali
Shelby Daniel

Scott A
Shelby Daniel
Joe Umali

tied for first = scott a and shelby

scott a - don't cut off mitch's hand next time and use a grey tube rope (or photoshop the rope out)
shelby - horizon's crooked
a.p. - nice capture of his expression

ej, yours would've been money had you not cut off the dark horse's head

i'm not lobbying for votes, but would we get more voters if we posted a link to this in the wake forum?

WCW (Snowboard pic)

JL (Surfer pic)

Joe (Wake Skate pic)

All have such great colors. Walt I chose as #1. Joe and JL are tied for second.

#1- ryan taylor- drawn to it.
#2- andrew maness- love black/white, it is like a story
#3- umali/e.j. umali's pic is good. the rider's position doesn't give me enough to connect to.
e.j.- agree with umali.. with the head, it's a winner

Isler sighting!

I like JL's surfer shot because he caught the action at a very cool point. I like the way you can just barely see the top of the wave as well. In this case I think showing the wave would have taken something away from the shot. It has a nice mood to it with the grey background and lack of a lot of color other then the surfer/board.

I also liked the geometry of Joe's shot, the interesting background elements and the way the rider kind of fits into them.

There were a lot of good images posted, those were the two that kind of jumped out and hooked me in.

Andrew Maness
Shelby Daniel
Joe Umali

I make the following comments that are only based on my unprofessional opinion:

Andrew- loved the black and white conversion. The player looking at the camera explains why it is important to capture people’s eye’s in photos. Just makes the photo in my opinion.

Walt – spot on timing, exposure and composition. The problem for me is the busy background. Too distracting and the guy walking with his shirt off just killed it for me.

Ryan – Great use of light and action. Had a tough time deciding between yours and the others for my final 3.

Shelby – loved it. The crisp clear rider is a prominent feature in the photo. Perfectly placed using the rule of thirds. The rope in his hand leads my eyes to the boat which is also nicely placed. Horizon is crooked, but you can easily fix that and not lose the perspective of the photo.

Russell – Awesome idea. The sequence shot caused the fire to be a jumbled mess. It would have been awesome to freeze one shot towards the end and see the flames clearly flickering.

Scott – Great colors and exposure. I just wished you didn’t cut his hand off. The rainbow underneath the board sort of distracts from it too.

EJ – This shot is powerful. It amazing to see the horses muscles rippling like that. But the horse’s head is cut off and the #9 horse is blocking the back end of the subject horse. Had those two items been corrected, I could see you making some money off of this shot.

Joe – Excellent as always. It’s an interesting background to a typical wakeboarding shot. Only way to make it better would be if the rider was facing you.

These are just my opinions.

#1 Andrew Maniss IMO you captured a cool moment.

#2 Shelby I like the lighting, solid grab and it's sharp. The horizon is a little out but that happens while shooting from a tube.

#3 Scott Nailed the action, sharp and nice color but I don't like that his hand is going out of the frame and the shadow across his head.



If there was a runner up it would be Joe's shot. The color and action are great. I prefer these types of shot to be vert/portrait instead of landscape because there's just to much uninteresting dead space most of the time. Some of the wake was cut off and the arm across the face are negatives too IMO.

AP,
I liked your shot too but there's something about the comp that doesn't work for me.

scott
shelby
EJ

This isn't the first picture of Mitch with a rainbow in it!!!


Sorry Mitch I had to do it

1 Shelby
+ Nice lighting. Good timing on the shot. Solid grab. I like the framing.
- Crooked.

2 Joe U.
+ Unique scenery. Rider pops. Wakeskating .
- Face is blocked. Awkward looking trick. Personally would like it a little looser to show more of that wake.

3 Walt
+ Exposure and colors look great.
- Contest photo.


There were a few other good ones, but these three had nice colors, had interesting action in an interesting location, and all made use of the frame nicely.

1 scott a
2 joe u
3 billy e

1. Scott A
2. Ryan Taylor
3. Shelby

1 Scott A
2 Joe
3 Shelby

In no particular order
J.L.
Scott
Billy E

I liked Joe's a lot but in the end it was a little too busy

I don't know if this will count or not because he didn't post it but Josh Letchworth is going with...

shelby
billy
ryan

IMO we shouldn't count it but it's still nice to have the input from a pro.

Not in order Barry V Joe Umali Billy E

I want to thank this board for the info that is posted here you will never get this type of help from the surf photogs Thank you JL MOB Group.tv

I will accept Josh's proxy vote. It's good to have people who do photography for a living voting here. (Thanks Hahn and Isler)

Also because Ansel Adams just told me he is voting for mine.

So now I got two votes

Can't believe I missed the horizon being off, thanks for pointing that out. Should I repost the corrected horizon version? Or wait til the voting ends?

I didn't realize people were commenting on their votes. I did liked a number of the photos, so here are some things I saw:

Scott A, I liked the shot other than his hand was cut off and the tube line was bright red. The rainbow in the spray is always nice too.

Walts picture was tack sharpe and good light. But for me it's hard to gain perspective when you can't see where he's taking off or landing.

JL's shot same senario. Try capturing more of the wave. This goes for a few of the wakeboarding images posted.

Ryan Taylors flash shot was nice. I've tinkered around with a lot of remote flash shots. Try getting the chase boat a bit more in front of the rider to capture more of his face. I have a very similar shot of Trevor Hansen coming out in a future issue of WBM.

Shelby, like everyone else said, straighten out the horizon.

Russells shot I really liked because of the trailing image. Yes the flame was blown out, but the photo really gives me a sense of how big the rider going. I would like to see a few without the flame.

Umali, I already told you what I thought of yours.

Billys shot should be a Hyperlite AD.

EJ's shot was sharp. But the lead horses head was cropped out. That horse is ripping! Panning out a bit to capture dirt flying, the fence posts behind the riders or more of the skyline will give this photo more depth.

Barry's shot was cool but nighttime flash shots can be difficult. The shot was a bit grainy to me. Don't worry Barry, I have a bunch of shots just like it. That and get out of the towboat.

Once again, this is just what I see.

joe
shelby
scott

Billy
Scott A
E.J.

Ryan - Love it. i would like to see it with maybe a bit more ambeint light.

Scott - good moment captured in the trick. good use of frame. move the horizon off center. accentuate more sky or more water. i would say get a lower angle and show a little more sky.

shelby - good comp and use of frame, good timing, as mentioned straighten horizon, could use better control of depth of field, the image teases the eye. it has enough DOF to see there is a boat with people but strains the eyes trying to focus it. either stop down and capture it all or get rid of it and recompose on rider.

overall everyone had great images.

Ryan Taylor
Billy E
Shelby

Ryan Taylor
Shelby Daniel
Billy E

WCW (walt)
Joe Umali
Ryan Taylor

1. Ryan Taylor
2. WCW (walt)
3. Joe Umali

1. Shelby (oldshoolripper)
2. Lizrd
3. A.P.