WOW!!!!! I had no idea this shot would ribbon! I wasn't even planning on entering this challenge. We live close to the cemetery that's by the university here and my wife loves to take walks there. Saturday was a warm sunny day and we went out and flew kites and then took a stroll through the cemetery. I thought something from the graveyard might be interesting so I just found an older looking headstone and tried the zoom blur, but that was meh at best. I then saw a puddle of mud next to the headstone and had an idea. I asked my wife if she'd do me a favor and she gave me that "here we go" sort of look. She said she felt embarrassed because there were some people close by, but covered her hand with mud and put her arm over the headstone in the creepiest way she could. I looked at the shots I got in RAW and chose the darkest one. All I really did was crop, B/W filter. large radius USM, resize, small radius USM, add black border, and then save for web and that was all the processing I did.
Now some of you asked if the "King" was intentional. Amazingly enough it was purely coincidence and I didn't draw the connection until someone pointed it out in the comments. I left the King there because it was a woman's grave so I cropped the woman's name out.
Thank you all so much everyone for your wonderful comments and for all the help I have received over the last 6 years from the DPC community. I really owe this one to each one of you who has helped me in one way or another.
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Place: 2 out of 95 Avg (all users): 7.1235 Avg (commenters): 8.1429 Avg (participants): 6.5682 Avg (non-participants): 7.3175 Views since voting: 6646 Views during voting: 399 Votes: 170 Comments: 59 Favorites: 5 (view)
Congratulations on your first ribbon... and a PB by a massive amount... guess you'll be looking at this image on your profile page for a while. Well done.
This is also like out of a Stephen King movie. Great cropping and duotone style. Nice fingernails :-)
See there can be some happy outcomes, even from nightmares.
Such as your first virtual ribbon, congratulations!
Oh, VERY well done! Congratulations on a most deserving spot in the winners' circle. I'm trying to get a visual of the scene where you were actually taking this photo. If anyone else was witness to it, it could have made them quite curious. Great execution for a great idea!
Congratulations on your first ribbon and a new personal best! This is in the best tradition of the scary zombie movies and is definitely a nightmarish scene!
Looks similar to one that was in the first nightmare challenge but I think this one was done great. The King on the stone makes me immediately think of Stephen King also. Black and white really makes this pop. 9
Awakening
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