...lifts us up...

[NeilL]

http://neilal.smugmug.com/photos/671014673_DSvdM-XL.jpg





Canon 40D, 24-105mm f4L
Tarout, Saudi Arabia

Neil

[Azzaro]

That is a great capture Neil......:clap azzaro

[Mav]

That is a great capture Neil......:clap azzaro

What he said :thumb

Really great colours too!

[Richard]

Excellent timing. It made me smile. :clap

[rwells]

We're all up in the air over here too about the center boys shirt, but that's a hole different post. :huh



Nice timing and I do like your processing on this shot :thumb

[Dogdots]

You caught the fun these boys were having -- excellent :thumb

[justThorne]

The upper center window might be a bit too crisp - it would better match the leftside one - but fundamentally, you've achieved a really timeless image (outside, perhaps, of the AIG shirt - I do not know WHAT is up with all those). Love the look and feel of it. And especially how the leftward youngster is walking on air, creating a useful "is that real?" wobble in the viewer's mind.

[NeilL]

That is a great capture Neil......:clap azzaro

Thanks for your encouragement, Azzaro!

Neil

[NeilL]

What he said :thumb

Really great colours too!

What I said to Azzaro, and glad you like the colors!

Neil

[NeilL]

Excellent timing. It made me smile. :clap

Thanks, R! But careful about smiling too wide, wouldn't want cracks to start appearing in your avatar!

Neil

[NeilL]

We're all up in the air over here too about the center boys shirt, but that's a hole different post. :huh



Nice timing and I do like your processing on this shot :thumb

Well, there's a saying about living above your means and getting too big... Guess it came around!

Thanks for your comment, Randy!

Neil

[NeilL]

You caught the fun these boys were having -- excellent :thumb

Thanks for your appreciation, Mary!

Neil

[NeilL]

The upper center window might be a bit too crisp - it would better match the leftside one - but fundamentally, you've achieved a really timeless image (outside, perhaps, of the AIG shirt - I do not know WHAT is up with all those). Love the look and feel of it. And especially how the leftward youngster is walking on air, creating a useful "is that real?" wobble in the viewer's mind.

Yeah, I always noticed that window, but it didn't touch a nerve until you mentioned it. You are right. I'll blur it to match. I wanted to get the pic to look like a ballet performance on stage (my original title was 'Elevation', a ballet term) and so I wanted the wall behind with its drawn-on goal net and graffiti to look like a painted backdrop. I found masking out the figures and ball was not going to be successful, so after tone work and applying some filters I desaturated the wall using Nik Viveza. The result was somewhat successful in separating those three figures away from the background and making of them a little dynamic system, while still sharing the theatricality of the rest.

This was a rather heavy crop, and so I was up against resolution limits very quickly. That showed most in the faces, so I brushed those back in from an earlier version, adjusting opacity and adding grain, to match the overall texture as close as I could, which as you will see, is not quite close enough.

I am seeing the value in taking the same shots at different focal lengths, though of course action shots like this don't oblige.

Thanks, Thorne, for the points you make.

Neil

[NeilL]

Edit, but given the limitations of this close crop from 10MP 40D, this is about as far as I can go with it in this direction ; )



http://neilal.smugmug.com/photos/674904541_akY6K-XL.jpg





Neil