I have actually shot one of these before for my friend Toddy. He races 250B in MotoX. He usually takes First but every once in a while takes 2nd or 3rd, but usually always places. I did one of these shots for him a year back for a gift and was excited to shoot it for a challenge. The problem was he broke his arm in a race about a month and a half ago and just got his cast off. I asked him if he could hit a jump and he said no problem. Crazy kid. Its really muddy around here right now, so to just get out of a cast and then in mud was gonna be difficult, he told me I had two chances to shoot this because of the mud. So this is actually my 1rst attempt. The 2nd was blurry. He was upset because he usually gets some sick air and just couldn't this time with the mud and his wrist. I still was pretty stoked to try this challenge with the new rules, so here is my attempt. 5 shots in total.
Adjustments:
Shot in Raw
Used Photomatix to convert to Jpg. Tonemapped.
In Jpeg
Used Layers and Layer Mask to put together all the pictures. Hue/Saturation, USM, Brightness & Contrast. Dodge and Burn on Bike. Add Vignette, and Border. Neat Image and Save for Web.
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Place: 18 out of 84 Avg (all users): 6.3608 Avg (commenters): 6.5652 Avg (participants): 6.1833 Avg (non-participants): 6.4023 Views since voting: 2409 Views during voting: 756 Votes: 316 Comments: 27 Favorites: 0
Compositionally, I like the shot. I like how he is entering the frame on one side, and he just partially shows, then is exiting the frame on the other, and still just partially shows. Your space between the bikes is good.
Technically, I like the color of the rider against the "bland" sky. Yea, a better sky would have made it more dramatic, but some things we can't control. Converting it to bw would help the sky, but then the rider would be lost in the details of the trees. I don't like the "texture" that the tonemapping gave the grass. I know that is a personal thing, and others really like it, but to me it looks almost grainy -- like it is out of focus or was underexposed and had to be brought up so much it made it edgy. Just my opinion though. I think the vignetting may be a bit much. Perhaps if it were more subtle.
Nice processing. I love the colours, the border, the composition. I'd like to have seen less space between the bikes and perhaps a couple more of them but I guess you were constrained by the camera in that regard
The vignetting kind of detracts on this for me, as does the grey sky. I know you don't have control over the sky. I do like the interplay between the greens and the browns in the grass.
Don't care for the burning insomuch as it obscures the rider, but other than that this is a very nice shot and a good use of the whole time lapse concept.
I don't care for the border. If it had surrounded the whole image that would be great, but the lack of border on the sides ruins it for me.
Overall a nice shot, but the vignetting takes away from the image. Good action, and good spacing on the rider, jsut hampered by the border and the vignetting. 6.
This idea has been done a lot in this challenge, but in my opinion, this is the best of them. I like the processing, the border, and the vignette. Very nicely done.
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