Thank you for the many lovely comments. This challenge was fun and stretched me to finally use the 4 x ND filter I've had for a few months now. This was taken at about 7pm on the nearby Red River beach. I was about to leave when this girl and her sister suddenly appeared from the parking lot and ran off, initially in separate directions. There was the sense of the freedom to run and explore that I associate with summers on the beach from my childhood, that I wanted to capture. I got just this one shot with her alone, before she rejoined her younger sister and slowed down. The shots of the two of them together were not as interesting. The blue outfit she was wearing was a bonus, as was her proximity to the darker area of sand from some other children's earlier sand activities.
Very little post processing. Slight crop at the top to remove a distracting darker band. I experimented with using Topaz detail for more/less detail and rejected both, but added a SEP layer in luminance mode mainly to add some grain.
I was concerned that too much of the image was blurred, as I associate Ben's images with having only some parts blurred and the rest sharp. However, it seemed to be by far the most appealing of the images I was considering so I went ahead and submitted it. I'm glad that it struck a chord with many of you.
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Oh Penny .. what a wonderful vision .. you must have such a fantastic imagination ... a hundred stories to be envision with one simply well done photo .. congratulations!!
I know Ben utilizes noise and grain, but I wonder if this image needed it at all. The shadows and blur may have been enough. Without the noise I would have scored this higher.
Inspired by Ben, maybe, but it's your own creative vision -- a unique one -- that's responsible for the end result. I think that's really what this challenge is all about.
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