The Challenger II stunt plane flies at the Alliance airshow in Fort Worth. I knew a shot from this sequence was my freestudy entry as soon as I chimped it. Had some difficulty getting the look I wanted, but running it through Photomatix twice gave me the appearance I was after. A bit more tweaking of the usual adjustments, some dodge/burn, selective sharpening, and I had the look I had envisioned for it.
Pre-challenge notes:
I've seen similar aerobatics shots win challenges before, so I am hopeful that this may be good for a strong showing in the high 5's.
Anticipated critiques:
-Composition too centered
-A bit of grainy noise in the smoke plumes
-Overprocessed
Post challenge notes:
I'm getting spoiled now. Two 6+ freestudies in a row. This one pushed the previous month's FS off of my profile page. Not sure if I've gotten better or just lucky!
Statistics
Place: 49 out of 403 Avg (all users): 6.3895 Avg (commenters): 7.6000 Avg (participants): 6.2520 Avg (non-participants): 6.7347 Views since voting: 2177 Views during voting: 311 Votes: 172 Comments: 15 Favorites: 1 (view)
I never got a chance to comment on this during the challenge, but I found it to be one of the far more interesting and entertaining shots this month!
I'm surprised you expected it to score in the 5's, it's an outstanding, clear, well composed shot with great colours and that's without even mentioning the subject which is also great. If you ask me it deserved to do better than water drops and landscapes which hogged the top spots!
...and in the flash of a moment of time, Steve's historic demonstration became a fight for life and control. It was the mid-21st century, and this sort of thing could not happen anymore, he thought, as he fought against the sudden fire billowing from his plane, his controls becoming more and more unresponsive. As he fought the flight-stick, the plane careening out of control, and a crowd on the ground screaming and running for cover, Steve saw the catalyst for this tragic happening out of the corner of his eye, a ghostly red plane, with tri-wing design, shooting off into the clouds, and a thin but strong chord of evil laughter being left in its wake.
Steve closed his eyes as his plane finally went into a dead spin, his control now utterly lost. He closed his eyes and silently cursed the legacy of his family, and he put a hex on the ghost of the Red Baron, which would never leave he or his descendants alone, and he prayed for his young son, who loved airplanes so, and in his last moments he wished that perhaps, just perhaps, his son might be the one to finally put the Red Baron to rest. One day...
...and with that thought, his own future disintegrated into a fireball on the ground, and in the crowd that stared in horror, was one little face, his eyes like stone, his fists clenched in an anger he didn't understand, and a vengeance was sworn.
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