kbelenky

But I don't like the post processing.

Way too much local contrast enhancement (USM or Shadow/Highlight).

You did a good job preserving the details in the white water. That's always a difficult thing to do with whitewater shots.

Other than that, though, I think the shot has a number of problems.

The blue tint isn't good. The shot is just too blue overall. It may have been meant to be artistic, but it just kinda looks like the white balance is off.

The shadow details are completely lost. The paddler just looks like a black hole, sucking away attempts to look at him.

Finally, from the paddler's body position and edging, I can tell that they're completely out of control. Aesthetically, I prefer shots where the paddler is in control, doing something interesting. Flailing around isn't good. We don't publish pictures of gymnasts falling on their faces, why should we publish WW Kayakers screwing up?

The original shot had really flat and gray lighting. After 3 years, I

revisited it and came up with a curves and USM formula that brought

out some more dramatic tones.

I love the composition and content of the shot.

The saturation is over done in my opinion. The blue sky and yellow-green of the grass looks blown out.

I like the composition of the photograph, the angles and the lines are interesting and draw the eye to the climber. It could stand to be sharper, but that's going to be true of any available-light shot taken in a climbing gym.

As a sports photograph it's not very interesting. Most of what the climber is doing is obscured. What we can see the climber doing is not particularly interesting or impressive. We can't really see any expression in the climber's face, so there's not a whole lot of empathy or emotional content. The overall result is that while people without climbing experience may find the contents of the photo interesting, any dedicated climber would look at the photo and think, "So what? I do that after work any day of the week."

The original shot was pretty "blah." I had to heavily photoshop it to

bring out the swirling sandstone and the shadow detail. Did I overdo

it? All comments welcome.

The sky at the top of the photo is too dark compared to the foreground and the sky in the middle. It's distracting to my eye.

I'm guessing you used a graduated ND filter, which seems appropriate for the situation, but perhaps it was a little too strong. You should be able to fix that in post-processing with an opposing gradient.

There's a diagram and discussion of proper use of assymetric blades here (you have to scroll down to "Assymetrical Blade Shape":

http://www.wernerpaddles.com/design.html

Beyond his kayaking technique, I'm not crazy about all the horizontal lines and the empty space at the bottom of the image. It also looks a little bit front-focused. The water just this side of the boat is in focus, not his face.

However, good job avoiding the "hand-in-face" shot that you so often get with kayaking.

This is a stitch of about 10 photos (5x2) shot from the upper balcony

of the former Sultan's Palace.

I don't believe I've ever seen a Riot boat quite that red in real life :)

Very vivid, with an unusual perspective for a surfing shot.

Hope this doesn't count as a nude.

I tend to be fascinated by textures, elephant skin included.

My only two comments:

1) It looks a bit over-saturated to me. The colors look a little bit Fischer-price (and right now I'm looking at it on a monitor that I know tends to under-saturate).

2) I'm not sure about the left-right cropping. The sides feel like they "stop" rather than "end."

The lighting conditions were challenging, the rocks in the foreground

were very dark, and the cloud-layer below had lots of fine bright

white on white texture.

I was experimenting with DOF to try and capture the confusion of the

migration.