tom_luongo1

Could you explain how you got the pawn to float? Dropped it on the table and got the shutter to click at the right moment perhaps?

At first, I thought this was a computer rendering because chess boards are used so often for that sort of subject matter !

Thanks!

The painting effect doesn't quite work for me. Maybe it doesn't look like the center portion of the dress was affected as much by the filter. I'd consider selecting that area and increasing the filter effect there a little more. But my first reaction to this was that I thought it looked like photos that had too much noise reduction applied.

I might change my mind if I saw this printed on an appropriate paper. Or if I looked at the photo next week.

If I were already manipulating the photo this much, I'd definitely clean up the paper on the floor to eliminate those distracting elements. And the red spots in the background on the right should also go.

However, the framing is just about perfect. Especially the girl in the background who is partially cropped. Maybe the way her face works to direct the viewer's eye towards the boy. The arcs of the arms work well too in someway to highlight or frame the faces.

Is this with autofocus? You have two other similar photos in your portfolio shot less than a minute and a half before this one. You must have picked a prime spot for your hide tent and spent a long time in it.

If you manually focused this, I'm impressed. If a D70 tracked this, I'm impressed. Even if you only got 15 keepers out of 400 exposures, it's impressive.

Exemplary patience must be the biggest factor in getting shots like these.

Bravo!