Damien Tries a Tabletop Look Down #1
THE SUBJECT:
Everything was perfect for this shot. There was no surfing action off the breakwater and I was on my way back to the car when I saw young Damien here and his mate practicing some BMX moves.
I sauntered over and made a few tentative shots when Damien came over and asked if I would make shots of the moves so he could see how he was going. So with a more than co-operative subject I set myself up for a good afternoon session with these two dudes.
THE LOCATION:
At the ramp at Town Beach, Port Macquarie , NSW, Australia.
THE MAKING of ‘Damien Tries a Tabletop Look Down #1’:
It was back in the days of my old workhorse the Fuji S5500 and I was using 3x Multi-shot high resolution .jpg. I had also left the camera set to Hard Sharpen which is NOT a good thing to do when shooting .jpg unless you are shooting architecture or such. No sharpening was applied to this at all during processing and I actually had to soften the edges slightly with a 5% Lens Blur to help get rid of the white halo artefacts. A 20% Lens Blur was used on the background behind the spectator.
I pre-focussed on an area of grass at the same distance as Damien would when up in the air then with the shutter release still half way down I framed the ramp and waited for the action.
Believe it or not NO flash was used here! The natural light from the lowering winter sun was absolutely spot on for the session.
While the colour version is quite good I much prefer this B&W version as it allows the viewer to concentrate more on Damien.
Fuji S5500: 1/1000sec @ f/3.1, ISO100, Hand held.
Lightroom 1.1 & Photoshop CS3.
Visit the Sport & Leisure collection in my BubbleSite Gallery for more cycling action.
UPDATE: 8-9-09
Young Damien was awarded a Merit in the Port Macquarie Panthers Camera Club’s August 2009 Competition in the Open Large Monochrome Print Section:
Enjoy!
BMX
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Damien Tries a Tabletop Look Down #1
