Failed attempt

"An athlete competes in the boy's high jump during the BYU Invitational at the Clarence F. RobisonTrack and Field Complex, Saturday, May 1, 2010."

This frame is also from the same track meet I shot last weekend. However, I'd say it's a failed attempt for a couple of reasons.

For one, this athlete failed to clear the bar.

Second, I never bothered to get his name.

Third, because Chip got me thinking. He recently made a photo like this that was gorgeous. I also shot something similar from a couple years ago.

After seeing Chip's, as per usual, beautifully colored frames, I guess I wanted to try and do the same thing, again, and make a better frame of my own old take of the picture.

I should preface, my feet, track pad picture at one time was in my sports portfolio when I was at Eddie Adams.

I distinctly remember Michael Williamson (one my favorite, favorite humans and photographers) saying how he made the same picture in the Olympics eons ago. Probably before I was even born. He talked about how it was good seeing, yet done over and over again.

Made me feel good...for a split second. Why? Because I had seen as he had. Hahaha.

Anyways, I quickly realized that the BYU track had cluttered, messy backgrounds everywhere I looked. Not even a clean sky.

Yet from the angle I was at, on a chair looking down, the blue mat and wet track came together. Add a pair of blue shoes and I could make this work.

But I never got it.

The competitors were not sinking deep enough into the mat to obscure their faces and torso to get the feet only look. Not to mention, any adjustments on my part got empty chairs and other things that wouldn't have made the picture as clean.

Oh, well. Something about the ripples in the pad that still drew me to it. Thanks for the inspiration, Chip.