Tone Mapped (not very aggressively at all) from 3 variations of a RAW exposure in Photomatix, exported to CS2.
Skew to adjust tiny off-level top. Clone dust lower right. Crop left and bottom a little bit, to maintain proportions while equalizing gutter right and left edges of image. Clone annoying little piece of leaf truncated by crop.
Sharpened with high pass, hue/sat alters relationship green to aqua, multiply layer, black-to-transparent burn gradient 4 edges, faded layer opacity
Resize, border, save for web
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Be it known by all: regardless of any comments regarding "shoehorning", this image was shot specifically for this title in this challenge. I had no desire to do an overly literal interpretation of anything, I had no desire to join the hordes celebrating "Photograph" by this same band. But I had seen this life saver in this partially-drained pool a week or so ago, and it came to mind.
The image conforms, in every respect, precisely to what I had visualized before I shot it. However, it is NOT staged; everything is as I found it compositionally (if anyone cares). The bright line of luminance where water meets pool side is natural, it hasn't been monkeyed with at all.
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Place: 29 out of 219 Avg (all users): 6.3031 Avg (commenters): 7.7619 Avg (participants): 6.1429 Avg (non-participants): 6.3776 Views since voting: 1226 Views during voting: 408 Votes: 287 Comments: 26 Favorites: 3 (view)
Doesn't strike me for one moment as a 'shoehorned' entry. As others have already said, this is simple and effective. BTW, I had you picked as a big Nickelback fan.
Beautiful color and lighting, I like the thin white border where it intersects the colors but not so much at the top on the brown, maybe because it's such a tight crop up there. 7
Nice idea to link to the title. The shot is quite neat. I like the lines of colour. A bit of noise though - perhaps smoother tones might have made it more striking.
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