Well, there are certain limits to my stupidity and while the photo would have been better with some motion blur on the blades, I simply wasn't willing to put my life at risk to get that shot :)
I was thinking about taking the engine off and finding a way to hand crank the blades, when it wasn't as bright and sunny out, but I really wanted the rich colors. Sometimes you just have to make some compromises.
To shoot the image I utilized three flashes. Two to light my model up and one for the blades. I used 550 cord and some tent stakes to prop the mower into position.
I did a bunch of post processing on this image. I imported into Lightroom 3, then fine tuned the white balance, exposure, added clarity and then began deleting all of the dirt spots from the photograph. I wanted a really bright, almost comic look, so I added a bunch of fill light and then some graducated filters to adjust the brightness in certain areas. I then worked on the shaprness and adding a bit of clarity to give it some punch.
Once I was done in Lightroom, I exported as a TIFF and took it into Photoshop. This is where I removed some distracting elements such as some twiggs above my models left shoulder, and also one of the ropes attached to the mowers left tire to keep it in place. I alsow worked in some maskings to really enhance the colors and did some cloning around parts of the image to remove some minor haloing due to the extreme sharpening. I also dodged my models face a little bit to give him some added punch.
All in all it was a great shoot and although the blades aren't blurred, the colors and safety were worth it :)
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Post Voting
Thanks for all the great comments and my first favorite! I love DPC!!
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Place: 9 out of 141 Avg (all users): 6.7287 Avg (commenters): 8.3000 Avg (participants): 6.7581 Avg (non-participants): 6.7015 Views since voting: 3379 Views during voting: 312 Votes: 129 Comments: 15 Favorites: 3 (view)
Oh believe me you're ready :). This was one of my 10s, fantastic shot! No motion blur needed, the scene, the crop, the light, everything is just the way it should be.
Dude!!!! Ok...back to look again. If this doesn't take a ribbon...and it should take Blue....It should be the highest non-landscape shot in the whole bunch.
Great, creative shot. Potential for a ribbon.
My only critique is that the colors look TOO bright and fake. Expecially the blue sky, but I still like it.
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