"Summer Boys"

Hoping for a nostalgic, childhood memory of fun-filled summer.

Works, not, why, why not? Thanks. ^_^

Works for me. Great action,Bill

Wonderful mood! Great work. It makes me feel like I'm ten (and at my age, that's a nice gift).

just right

An "all times " childhood play scene, Wilson. Good composition crop and color tones. Pnina

Works for me big time. This image has a wonderful feel to it. The Monochrome effect is perfect. Howard says, congratulations.

I think it works Wison but the butt to the right is a little tight in the frame.

What a wonderful image!! I love the action in this shot, the fuzzy background, and the surfboards. Two nit-picks, though ... first, I don't know if you could have gotten the top part of the third surfboard and the kid's leg/foot without making the entire image way too large, but I would have loved to see it included. Secondly, why did you choose sepia? This picture screams "color!!" ... may we see the original colors?

Wilson- I love the fact that they are all mid-air! They look to be having such great fun! Awe.... to be so full of energy like that again! I like the way the light hits each one of them differently causing wonderful hair & skin highlights. The softness works too, gives me the feeling of dreaming. One of these yours? :)

 

For some reason it won't let me rate, 7/7!

wish i were there ... Interesting picture.

The perfect harmony of tension. Coordinated motion of the objects, division of the picture's space and colour. Critical area on the right indeed (David). But your solution gives a feeling of "the actors did just jump into the picture".

 

(And you dont need a "written permission" :-)

Works for me. Love that dreamy nostalgic look. Nice tones and action with a soft feel.

I guess in earlier times they would have been running around with wooden shields and spears ;-) beautiful and fun!

I'd rate this as a truly excellent photo, but why would you choose Earth tones for the sea...? To make it look old...? I think this isn't appropriate - nor needed. I'd also suggest to get completely rid of all the blurring. As it is, I still like the photo, but it screams "digital and artificial" to me.

 

Can you please upload an unmanipulated version with selenium tones or no toning at all...? High chances I'll give it a 7 or two. Superb light and composition, and movements are truly well in tune here, with a very lively emotion going through the frame. Just trust the content and original form of this photo, and please show us the real thing soon - and please let me know about it if you do... Cheers.

Nice balanced,You hold the movement still.

many different opinions and insights. Thank you.

 

BILL W.: Appreciate your comment.

 

BILL F.: That's what I hope to communicate, thanks.

 

GERG: Glad it works for you.

 

PNINA: Happy that you like it!

 

HOWARD: Wilson says, "Thanks."

 

McCRAKY: You don't like tight-butt, eh? Good thing you're not familiar "tight end" position in American football. ^_^ I also wish I got more of the right side, but was tracking them boys hand-held at a very long focal length. My bad.

 

LOU ANN: Same here, I was a bit off in framing with the long focal length and also wish I had more of the right. As for sepia and soft blur, as I stated originally, I was hoping for a nostalgic, boyhood memory of a fun summer. I'll post the original color version below. Thanks for your comment.

 

JAYME: Thanks, Jayme. The one at the left is Felyx. You may have seen him in my bio page, "Self Portrait."

 

SPENCER: Thanks, Spence.

 

DP: Thanks, you mysterious person (^_^).

 

KEN: Always appeciate your feedback.

 

ANDREA: Or probably with bows and arrows . . . thanks!

 

MARC: Very appreciative of your comment, Marc. You assessment is thoroughly understandable and well taken. And yes, I was hoping for the effect you mentioned, but I guess it didn't fly for you. I'll post the original color version in a few.

 

Frankly, another reason I was going this manipulated route is because I've been putting up a handful of non-manipulated baseball photos and they didn't seem to generate that much discussion, or maybe it's that PN population in general doesn't care much for sports photography. Just check out "Learn," "Sports Photography," by Rob Miracle written for photo.net 7 years ago that only has 1 follow up comment (dated 1995.)

 

All in all, I'm grateful for long-time members, like yourself, that continue to make this site the top-dog in photography. FWIW, I'm now at sportsshooter.com for sports.

 

ALEXANDRA: Vielen Dank.

 

Wilson

^_^

Here's the original color capture . . . you can tell by his boogie board.

The blur adds to the mystique of the childhood memory, good tonal qualities. Cheers, Sondra

Great picture!...Congra...!

Lovely !

Yes, really reminds me of my childhood. The tones & dreamy effect, esp, is filled with a sense of nostalgia.

Wilson...I like both versions. The first, nosatalgic, definitely. The original...bursting with color and energy, whereas the sepia is almost dreamlike and in slow mo.

 

Just when I was feeling disgusted with the continuing tightening of the PN reins, you point out why I am still here....

"Just when I was feeling disgusted with the continuing tightening of the PN reins, you point out why I am still here.... "

 

Thats my reason as well Linda... very much sharing your feelings..

 

 

Thanks for your reply, Wilson. The dreamy mood of lost childwood is what it was about, yes. And I think it's a fairly normal intention to push this picture that way... And the result you got is ok. It would even perhaps be called very good IF we couldn't feel the trickery. Some people do feel this picture is natural enough; some, like me, would consider you lost realism on your way...

 

The funny thing is that I used to do this sort of sharp and blurry thing. A couple of years ago, I did post some portraits on which I worked exactly the way you did here. Then I noticed that many pictures had the same effect everywhere, and I concluded that using the same effect was just following a trend, and a very artificial trend at that... So I stopped.

 

Let's step back for a moment. The real question now is: can you get that old childhood dreamy look you are looking for, WITHOUT using standard PS filters and methods...?

 

Answer is: yes, you can.

 

You can use old printing methods - similar to Emil Schildt's for example -, or you can even try using a combination of self-made filters using PS, etc. Or you could have used Cokin's "dream" filter when taking this picture - would work great in a case like this, because of the bright sea. Many more ways to go, which would not look so artificial, and which would not make the end result a cliche.

 

Or simply, how about just converting to b&w in order to give the pix the "nostalgic feel" of bw, while avoiding all color distractions...? Wouldn't that be enough...? Imagine a nice large print of something like this attachment, just done in 3 minutes with PS elements 2.0..:-) Moody enough...?

By the way, this picture was cropped at left, wasn't it...? Any chance to see it with more sand on the left side...?