There are many sports photos on DA, but how many of them can actually be considered art? Why are there so many that look like snapshots? What makes a great sports photo anyway?

The reason why so many sports photos are lousy is because sport is a very demanding subject on your equipment, it requires fast shutter speeds and/or large apertures to freeze the moment and capture all the available light(for indoor sports this is particularly important). So basically shooting sports is good for the equipment snobs, but this isn't always the case so don't despair.

There are a few items to remember when you analyze a sports photo and that you should consider if you want to improve your skills.

A - Background

The background should be as clean as possible in order to isolate the subject, in some sports it's not possible to do this for several reasons so a long lens with a large aperture should be considered to give you a nice bookeh(background blur).



Here the background blur is good but I still find it a little distracting ... but I didn't have another position to shoot.



B - Expressions

Blank faces don't make good photos, unless there's a reason behind them, the facial expression is important to make others pay attention to the photo.




C - Tell a story

In photojournalism it's important that a photo tells a story, that it allows the viewers to feel as if they were there with you.



D- Angle

A different angle can make a great photo.



E- a little blur can be artsy



Above everything don't forget that your subject matter is people, not the ball, not the cars or the rinks. I hope you have found this little article useful and I apologize for plugging my own photos along the way, but it served a purpose.