LA Marathon
Sometimes a part of a scene tells the whole of the story. And sometimes a part of the story is all we need to complete the image in our minds eye.
The repeating patterns of the muscular legs in the running shoes tells us that a race is about to begin. By not showing us the first or the last set of legs we don’t know how may runners there are in total so we assume there are quite a few more than we can see. The fact that there is a horizontal line at their feet gives us the impression that they are at the starting line for the race and that it is about to begin. This single image tells us a lot about the story without showing us anything but a few carefully selected details.
I know the photo-artist made some important cropping decisions but I might suggest trying the image without the second horizontal line. I don’t feel it is necessary for the story and it causes the image to be divided at the centerline of the frame. This is the photographer’s call to make, ether way works for me.
Click on Image 
Cropped 
Modified by Photographer 
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I procured a press pass through a local college where I am enrolled in a photography/journalism class. This afforded close up access at the start of the race as well as access to the photographer’s bridge over the finish line. This image was taken about fifty feet from the start line using a 200 mm zoom lens. I cropped nearly half of the street pavement from the bottom. In response to Jim’s comment about the second red starting line, I cloned it out rather than cropping more of the image
March 4th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Hi Norman,
Send us a copy of your revised image and I will post it along with your original.
Thanks, Jim
March 4th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Norman, this is an awesome shot. This photo truly tells a story. I saw the photo and within a split second I thought “LA Marathon” without seeing the title. I like the cropped version better, because it takes the start line out of the middle of the photo. It improves the composition of the photo.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
My first thought when seeing this was yea why not just clone it out. But as I see there is more focus and attention on the runners and appeal to me in the cropped version.
A wonderful image!