I really liked the idea behind this challenge. I'm not much for street shooting, as I'm naturally introverted and shy, so I don't like bringing out my camera around people. But this type of challenge forces me to shoot in an uncomfortable situation, which is very good for me.
On a sleeting Saturday morning, I took my camera with my brand new 15-85 lens to State Street, Madison. There were a number of good opportunities, but nothing great was coming up. That is, until I walked past this very quirky hat store called Sacred Feather. This particular head really stuck out at me, so I found a nice angle, and grabbed the shot. I really enjoyed how this turned out, especially with the reflection in his glasses. Then I ran it through Topaz adjust, and it turned into something very cool (in my opinion). I just hope I don't get too many low votes from the snow reflection across the face (it couldn't be helped).
Post Processing:
* Crop
* Increase Exposure
* Increase Black Point
* Topaz Adjust
* Increase Definition
* Increase Saturation with lower Vibrancy
* S-curve
* Burn and Polarize (multiply) the main reflections to reduce intensity slightly
* Export to Tiff
* Resize to 1600px
* Sharpen Edges
* Resize to 800px
* Sharpen Edges
* Save for Web
This is the first time I have tried the resize/sharpen/resize/sharpen technique. I'm not sure that I did it perfectly correct, but the end result was actually a lot cleaner than using Unsharp Mask just before saving for web, so I may try that more often.
Statistics
Place: 8 out of 52 Avg (all users): 6.0056 Avg (commenters): 7.2222 Avg (participants): 5.3846 Avg (non-participants): 6.1104 Views since voting: 1849 Views during voting: 347 Votes: 180 Comments: 14 Favorites: 0
There are many reflection shots in this challenge. But THIS is masterful. By far outperforms the others. I also love the editing you have chosen here. Topaz?
Really great shot, so very much to look at and to like. 9
I've given 3 10's in this challenge.. this is the 3rd one, what an awesome job you did here! the softness and blending of the hats and the stark sharpness of the reflection in his (lol his) glasses.. Just blows me away! 10
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