I think this was more of a luck shot than anything. I did spend some time, framing and composing it, but only the foreground (stick, cueball, eightball). The background turned out much better than I'd expected (or even noticed at the time), and I was sure I wanted to submit it for the Table Shot Challenge.
Credit goes to Chris Johnson for holding the pool stick and being patient.
If I remember correctly, I sharpened, resized, despeckled, and sharpened again.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 20 Avg (all users): 8.6000 Avg (commenters): 9.0000 Avg (participants): 8.4615 Avg (non-participants): 8.6186 Views since voting: 38317 Votes: 110 Comments: 47 Favorites: 42 (view)
I love the fact that this photo is still the highest rated in the site. I think if that ever changed the whole place would collapse and everyone would go away and stop taking photos!
This photo in a way is a testimony to how the site has evolved for good and bad. There's not a single vote below 5, because the very worst people thought about it is, it's reasonable, and clearly this was still an era where people voted purely on what they thought of it. That just wouldn't happen now, even if someone submitted the perfect photo (if there is such a thing)!
On the other hand, it's not a photographic masterpiece is it? I probably wouldn't ever come back to it if it wasn't the top raking photo. There must be hundreds if not thousands of photos submitted over the years that are both technically and artistically better than it, but none of them have beaten it, and that is testimony to just how much the standard has increased. This is proof, if it were ever required, that people vote photos relative to the rest of the field.
Well done Langdon, for not only having the top ranking photo to this day, but for giving us a site that has inspired so much skill, art, learning, debate, happiness, anger and most of all, photography!
This shot deserves a comment every year or so doesn't it? Great DOF!
Regarding the score discussion, consider this shot in the context of the other entries in this challenge (and the fact that it was shot in 2002) and it is clearly the outstanding shot, by a huge margin, in this challenge, the score makes sense to me. The difference between #1 & #2 doesn't get much more stark.
Putting it in the context of pictures regularly gracing the front page of this site in more recent years years, this shot & its score are a testament to how wildly successful DPC has been in promoting great photography and photo education.
A decade+ after the fact, I'd like to say congratulations Langdon on the Table Shot challenge & thanks for the site.
May be this is one of that cases when everybody thinks: Well, may be i'm missing something here, something that others see and i don't. May be this is the best picture of the site, but there is something wrong with me and i don't get it.
Well people THINK YOUR OWN WAY.
I think this is a great shot. I feel the composition might be slightly better if you'd angled the camera up very slightly (by placing coins underneath it), and turning it slightly to the right. This would put the cue ball more off centre and you'd get more of the interesting window in the background. That's just my opinion though, and I don't couldn't do better with the focus or exposure. Very well done!
Sparky9001, you are for getting the challenge rules.
There are better picture on the site yes!
But none that have been shoot like this, from a table-top.
The challenge rules:
Take your camera, place it on a table-top of any sort, and shoot away. The idea is to get a photograph from an alternate perspective not normally viewed. Good Luck!
The lighting and shadows in this picture are so tasty, especially with the light that's reflected onto the cue ball from the felt, and the curtains in the window. The green is such a good match. And I'm a sucker for a really narrow depth of field. Nice job!
Eight Ball -- Corner Pocket
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