One of many beautiful sunsets at La Jolla Shores near the famous Scripps Pier. The surfer did not know I was shooting him, so the interesting pose (I like how his left hand echoes the board's fins) was totally unstaged.
Almost all p/p was done during conversion from RAW (viva RAW!) - increased temperature, saturaton and contrast. THen rotated, cropped, slight sharpening, cloned a couple of minor blemishes, resized.
Update:
there was a lot of coufusion during the challenge about the similarity between this shot and this.
Yes, the similarity is not accidental. We went to shoot for the challenge with my daughter Masha, and these two shots happened to be the best ones for both of us, so we entered them. Perhaps, this confusion cut into our scores a little bit (we even got requests for validation during the challenge), but what the heck. I like both of our shots, and I am very happy with my placement, even though was hoping for more during the challenge given the score :). But there was some tough competition in this challenge, so kudos to the three masters who finished above!
Finally, thanks to all voters and (especially) commenters!
Statistics
Place: 4 out of 248 Avg (all users): 7.1224 Avg (commenters): 8.3103 Avg (participants): 7.0439 Avg (non-participants): 7.1951 Views since voting: 5376 Views during voting: 429 Votes: 237 Comments: 36 Favorites: 11 (view)
Nicely done! Recognized the pier immediately, so figured this was yours. There's another shot further down the list, apparently of the same surfer; were you folks shooting together or what?
The sunset colours are mutes and simple, but boy do they make this an excellent image and
the ballance in composition between the rig and surfer is well developed
Better of the two images (which appear to be somewhat identical). Like the fact that the surfer is squating and the board is parrellel to the ground rather than upright with the surfer. Love the colours of the sky and refelction on the water and beach. Good Luck.
Very nice shot! Love the colors. I have to admit that I saw this photo prior to seeing a second photo of the exact same surfer (different pose), pier, sunset, etc. This one is much better than the other (IMHO), however, I was curious - did you spouse perhaps take the other one??? :-) It was good too, but didn't have the same impact on me that this one does.
An absolutely wonderful image in every way. The beautiful tones, detail in the ocean, the setting sun, the dock and the person with surf-board. I can't think of a single thing you could have done to make this a stronger image. Simply outstanding!
This is a BEAUTIFUL, amazing photo. I love everything about it. The colors, the perfect, focused sun, the waves. The reflection of the pier on the wet sand. Great job. 10
I feel that this very, very good image is confused by the pier on the right. A portrait format of just the surfer and the sun would have compelled me to give a 10. Here - 7
Bahumbug. No fair! You just knew there was a surfer on this site and that you would be able to get a good score of of him for thi wonderfull shot. (9) I would have gone higher but I cant help but wonder if this was shot at a different angle would you have captuerd more of the gold in waves. Sharp lines on the silhouettes and a wonderfull rich golden color on the sand.
Beautifully composed image captured at the perfect moment. Technical quality is top notch. I envy this capture and your ability to frame it just right. You have done this so much better than I did when I tried to capture something similar:
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