Patriotic Parade

Both of these images were shot at last year's 4th of July parade, it was too hot for me this year! The club assignment that was coming up in '08 was Motion but I wanted blur to give more of a feeling of movement to the image rather than freezing the action, so I used a slow shutter speed with panning. Since I do not have a ND filter to darken the scene further I used my smallest aperture, f29 so that my shutter speeds would be longer to allow the motion to blur.

Camera info: Nikon D200, 18 - 70 mm 3.5-4.5 lens at f29 and 1/8th (top image) and 1/4th (bottom image)

Post processing: Top image -- processed for more exposure and more blacks and a little more vibrance in ACR, in Photoshop cloned out sensor spots, Touch of Light on her face, Touch of Dark on background, Boost action from Pioneer Woman for more color but masked off face, Levels for global brightening, Curves to lighten her face further, the Edge and the High Pass filter for sharpening. Bottom image -- in ACR increased the exposure, blacks and vibrance, in Photoshop cloned out a distracting long white streak, Levels to darken the background, Touch of Light on horse's face and legs and man's face, Touch of Dark on background, sharpened with The Edge and the High Pass filter, then merged all layers and changed that layer to softlight at 25% opacity for more richness.