First, I have to say that if this pictutre doesn't do well I think I will be crushed.
When voting begins on this challenge it will be 1 PM on Monday the 12th of May here in Korea. The 12th of May is Buddha's 2552nd birthday. It is a national holiday here in Korea and for that reason this weekend the spousal unit and I went to a very unique Buddhist Temple to photograph the temple with all of the lanterns set up for his brithday. While we were there these drumers began banging on the large drum and ringing the bell to signify the end of the day before they went to pray to Buddha.
At first I didn't think that I would photograph the drummers, but then I figured I better not miss out on the opportunity. I headed to the drum without even planning on putting an image in for this challenge with a shot, and then it hit me....drummer......buddhist drummer.....what goes before drummer......ceremonial....that's it, Buddhist Ceremonial Drummer. Now I am in high gear, I ditch the landscape lens and thrown the 85mm prime in its place and get off to the side of the drum. I photographed several images of each of the drummers before I saw one set up to ring the large bell. I then moved into position to capture that action as well.
I have spent half of my 14 year long Air Force career here in Asia and this is the first time that I have seen the monks drumming like this. It was a treat to witness and to photograph. So for all of that, I will be crushed if this doesn't do well.
PP was pretty simple. I opened in ACR with the recovery sliderat about 90%, the fill light up a bit as well as the blacks, and then I cranked the calirty. Following that I ran Nik Vivez and brought the tones down on the robe, and the drum, while brightening the skin tone a bit because the recovery had adjusted that. Then I used Nik Color Efex 3's Pro Contrast. That left the image brighter then I wanted so I used a levels adjustment layer and moved the middle slider down a bit. Then I used Nik DFine 2.0 for noise removal, and copied that so I could selectively sharpen the monk and the drum. Resized, added the border and saved for web.
Overall I am happy with my image and will be crushed if it doesn't do well.
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Place: 54 out of 194 Avg (all users): 6.1149 Avg (commenters): 6.5000 Avg (participants): 5.8400 Avg (non-participants): 6.3973 Views since voting: 1083 Views during voting: 211 Votes: 148 Comments: 8 Favorites: 0
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