“Variety is the spice of life”

Posted by on May 29, 2011 | Comments Off

Of course, we always to pick the best photos to run in our newspaper. But, as the old saying goes, “variety is the spice of life.”

So, when editing photos and choosing photos for print, visual variety is also a consideration in our photo choice decision.

I  photographed two state high school championship tennis matches yesterday.

The first match:

Larisa Fossum of Naches Valley High School reaches for the return shot against Michelle Lui of Forest Ridge High School the state class 2B/1B/1A tennis tournament May 28, 2011 in Yakima. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

And the second match:

Italia Mengarelli of Granger High School returns a shot in the first set of her May 28, 2011 match against Megan Byers of Tonasket High School in the state class 2B/1B/1A tennis tournament in Yakima. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

Besides being predictable, routine tennis-playing photos, they are visually similar. Shot from across the net, slightly to one side of each player. One hitting a forehand shot, one hitting a backhand shot. Nice side light on both players. Same clean, green background.

Knowing this, I wanted to shoot other photos that would give the sports page designers some visual options, ways to “mix it up” for the readers.

Another photo of the first player:

Larisa Fossum of Naches Valley High School returns a shot as she plays Michelle Lui of Forest Ridge High School May 28, 2011 in the state class 2B/1B/1A tennis tournament. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

And another photo of the second player:

Italia Mengarelli of Granger High School changes the score and passes the balls off to her opponent Megan Byers of Tonasket High School between games as they play each other in the state class 2B/1B/1A tennis tournament May 28, 2011. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

This second set of photos are quite visually dissimilar with one being shot from a higher angle and incorporating the player’s shadow while the second is a non-action photo.

There was one other consideration in choosing a photo of Larisa Fossum (the girl in the first and third photos). We ran a photo of her the day before in which she is also hitting a backhand shot. So there was even more reason to pick a different photo, something a bit out of the ordinary.

The last two photos are the ones we used in the paper this morning. I think they worked pretty well together and gave the reader something different.

A side note: the sports page designers/editors at the Herald-Republic rock. They are a photographer’s best friend. They run photos big and aren’t afraid to run a photo that may be a little different.

And one other thought about these photos. Emotions are part of what makes an otherwise-routine photo a good, or great, photo.  However, none of these photos (or any others I shot of the two girls) have any emotion which makes the photos pretty, ummm…. boring. They’re competent photos but just not that exciting.

They were shot during semi-final matches and neither girl showed any emotion during their matches. Because of time constraints I wasn’t able to stay until the end of the matches and see if either competitor showed any emotion at the end of her match.

–Gordon King