This is Kim’s original photograph. I suspect this is the whole frame without any cropping.
I’m going to meddle with and crop Kim Beyer Rayburn’s wonderful sledding photograph in the most loving way. Sometimes, it’s amazing how cropping into a photograph can give it so much more impact. I think this is especially true with sports photographs…and this is a good one.
Many of the sports photographs that I shoot look like Kim’s original photograph—a wide version. (It’s really not a bad way to go. Shooting wide like this gives you the opportunity to find and crop into your masterpiece later. It took me years of being a newspaper sports photographer to figure this out. I was always trying to make pretty compositions as I was shooting people jumping and throwing and running. That can often be a mistake; very difficult, to say the least. Okay, let’s just say it out loud, I was really bad at it.)
I often ended up with an action subject smack dab in the middle of the frame because I was using automatic focus in continuous mode and that keeps the subject sharp. I kept my focusing sensor on what’s important. So it’s not unnatural or unreasonable for anyone photographing serious action to end up with photographs that need some cropping.
No, the big bad red lines don’t mean this is a bad photograph, I just put them on their to show you how the heads ended up almost exactly in the center of the picture. This is a very common occurrence when people are photographing action. Essentially, they are doing everything they can to keep the subject in the frame at all – much less try and make a beautiful composition. Totally understandable…and reasonable.
I did my best to eliminate the distracting building in the background, too. But my main purpose was to get their faces out to the center of the frame. This is one serious feel-good photograph.
The thing that’s “wrong” with this photograph is that their heads are smack dab in the middle frame— like I said, I am using the word wrong in the most friendly way. smile emoticon Having their heads right in the middle gives the subjects sort of a trapped feeling. Are they coming or are they going? I’m going to crop into them and try and make them feel like they’re leaving the frame. Imagine they’re going so fast they’re flying out of the frame! That’s what I’m trying to say here with this crop. I’ve done everything I can to put their heads to the right side of the frame and still leave the picture with a decent composition.
But I love getting in closer to the riders and getting their heads out of the middle of the frame. I wanted to create a sense that they are moving out of the picture. With or without the crop it’s a wonderful father-son moment. Look at those faces!
But in the end, what I’m really trying to do is put emphasis on the father/son relationship and preserve a wonderful childhood memory as dramatically as I can…preserving it forever.
Kim explained that she and her husband have two families. They have a couple of kids in their 20s and a couple of kids who are, well, kids. (For those of you that don’t know, I have three sons; 27, 11, and 8.) One of my best friends is in the same boat. I shared Kim’s photograph with him and he told me that he now has it hanging above his desk. I can totally relate. That’s how I felt when I saw this. Come on, guys! We have time for one more run down the hill!
