When sorting through the tournament images I found a some really interesting images in terms of capturing competitor's eyes. I found myself trying to capture a movement of some of the top patterns competitors positioning myself to have the eyes and hands kind of lined up or getting in each other's way. This had me tip-towing and making odd body movements of my own to line up the camera as I took these images. I must have looked pretty odd myself at time. Here are some of the results...
Lens: 42.0mm, 1/160s, f/2.8, ISO: 800
I waited until Erica Germain's flying belt had covered one of her eyes before taking this shot. Believe that and you'd believe anything! It's an accident, but a really nice one. The one eye looking through the gap with the foot pointing to her face and the emphasis drawn on the face from the partial obsuring of it by the belt all helps to make this a nice composition. Try covering her face with your finger then you will see how the picture loses interest to see what I mean.
Lens: 55.0mm, 1/160s, f/2.8, ISO: 800
Courtney Meleisea finishes her pattern and probably wonders what I'm doing bobbing up and down, left and right to line up and snap this shot. Well things like this start happening when the photographer starts getting bored :-)
Lens: 55.0mm, 1/160s, f/2.8, ISO: 800
Erica has all of her face bar eyes covered by her hand. Her hand is nice and sharp with her face behind the focus point. It's an unusual image and I like it a lot.
Lens: 44.0mm, 1/160s, f/2.8, ISO: 800
Alex Couling's strong gaze almost looks right through me. It is strong, powerful making the stance look strong too.
Next I'll show examples of how eye contact with the photographer can make a difference.
