Our photo club field trip in March was to the Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark in Houston and it was the first time I had ever been to a skatepark, or tried to photograph skateboarders. The event was titled "Babes on Boards" and I was thinking it would be Roller-Derby-types of women, and while there were some of those, there were many little girls too. Some were led by a parent down a gentle slope, teaching little ones as young as about 3 years old how to balance. One pre-teen girl had her arm in a bright red cast and she did NOT sit on the sidelines and watch. I wanted to use a slow shutter speed with panning for motion blur images but found it hard to tell where the girls were going inside those empty swimming pools --- I just couldn't follow the action very well. Still I did get some action shots with stopped motion and I had a great time watching those crazy-brave girls.Camera info: Nikon D200, 70 -200mm 2.8 VR lens, f5.0 at 1/640th, ISO 100, sunny whitebalance
Post processing: duplicated the background and cloned out distracting spots in the concrete, ran The Edge, PopSickle and Krypto Glasses actions from Kubota and reduced the opacities to my taste and masked away areas that did not help the image, added a levels adjustment for brightness.
This photo has so much going for it: the numbers show how high she is above the surface, the shadows add a very graphic element, and her position shows motion (because the brain knows she could not be in this position without some motion). The only improvement that I can think of is if this one had been taken by me rather than you. Really nice work, Cindi!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Larry on this one. I've seen several shots of this, including serveral I took, and I like yours the best so far. Good job.
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