Discus Thrower at Peak Release Moment

Round 6
Image 4 — "failed" : 3.20
Going for the botched throw instead of the triumphant one is the wittiest thought in the round, and I wanted to love it. But the contorted face reads as grimace rather than effort, the musculature is pumped past anatomy, and the discus wanders off on a trajectory the body never sold — the joke arrives before the picture does.

Image 1 — "The Moment of Letting Go" : 3.40
A handsome vertical: low angle, sun bursting through the stand, the whole stadium tipping with the thrower. It stops at the first thing anyone pictures for this theme, though, and the glitter trail off the discus is pure poster kitsch on top of skin rendered to a showroom gloss.

Image 2 — "Let It Fly" : 3.70
The best-made photograph here by some distance — that bruised gold sky, the weight actually sitting in the plant leg, the crowd dissolving into texture behind. Putting ALEKNA on the bib is a lovely piece of grounding, borrowing a real dynasty to make an invented athlete feel like he has a history. Still the same heroic stadium reading as Image 1, only executed with more conviction.

Image 3 — "to achieve the best result" : 3.95
The only competitor who moved the camera. Straight down into the circle, and suddenly the throwing ring becomes a graphic device, the concrete a field of sweat and scratch, the discus slipping out at the frame's edge. Best of all it puts you face to face with her — the strain is aimed directly up the lens, which no stadium wide shot can do. The compressed perspective softens in places, but this is the one image that treated the theme as a question rather than an instruction. My winner.