My Buddy Playing Pool

Here's a shot of one of my teammates playing pool. He's the backspin king on our team. He'll backspin a ball across the full length of the table without breaking a sweat. The rest of the team usually uses topspin to pull of the same shot. Just gotta play what you're comfortable with.


This was shot using my 50mm f/1.8 lens. Natural light shot again at ISO1600. I used a little Unsharpen Mask in Photoshop to get the image a bit more crisp. The wide aperature makes focus a little tricky. I don't think the Unsharpen Mask is over done in this case though.

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Good shot, will lit.

Well, he's definitely not hitting a draw shot in the image

I like how the light is focused on the shooter and the overall scene looks somewhat vignetted to bring the viewer's attention to the shooter, but the double doors in the background are a bit distracting...

Very "moody", shows the concentration of the shooter very well...

I played APA and BCA leagues for about 6 years and been in my share of dimly lit pool halls and bars......nice job.

Best,

Tom D

Thanks for the comments.

No he's not hitting a draw shot in this one. I noticed that after I posted and kinda laughed, one of the few times he didn't that night. :P

Yeah I know what you mean by the double doors being distracting. In the past with a shot like this I would have separated the forground and background in photoshop and applied a blur and darken the background. Sometimes I feel that the image looks over processed after I do this.

I currently play in the AActive league in my city. They're the company that owns 95% of the coin-op tables. I've been in that league for 8 years. I played 2 years in CPA (the Canadian APA), but I found playing on two teams was too much. I enjoyed APA, but I had to stick with my buddies from University whom I had been playing with for many years.

Lighting and effects are brilliant ... the cross bars on the double door are a big distraction though ...

Thanks vickshy00, the background in general is bugging me. I'm hoping to find some time to process this one some more. I will probably mask out the background and try and make it less distracting some how. Possibly a slight blur, and darken it slightly.

You've really succeeded in capturing the mood good shot!