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Girly Whirly
Girly Whirly
levyj413


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Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Spinning (Basic Editing)
Collection: Blur
Camera: Canon PowerShot S2 IS
Location: Back yard
Date: Mar 25, 2007
Aperture: 4.5
ISO: 50
Shutter: 1/20s
Galleries: Family, Action
Date Uploaded: Mar 27, 2007

 The only idea I could think of was to have my daughters wind up their swing and spin around. They each took turns while I perched on the support overhead. As usual when shooting my girls, it was quite a bit of fun, with them wanting to try again and again. The best part of any shoot is enjoying some fun with them.

After 250 shots and several spins each, this was the best image in terms of frame and color. I have some others where you can see their faces, but I actually prefer the more anonymous composition - she could be any kid on a swing.

This'll probably yield my first sub-5 score in a couple of months, but I like it.

My editing intentionally moved away from a real look to an extreme one: major contrast boost, desaturated and darkened the greens, and resized. Sharpening would've brightened up the background, which I wanted to avoid, so I skipped it.

Here's another take from a few months later:

Statistics
Place: 76 out of 156
Avg (all users): 5.3363
Avg (commenters): 7.7143
Avg (participants): 5.1864
Avg (non-participants): 5.3892
Views since voting: 1233
Views during voting: 292
Votes: 226
Comments: 22
Favorites: 1 (view)

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AuthorThread
 01/26/2008 07:51:26 AM
Another very artsy shot, you've done a great job here, i love the composition and colors, nice job.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/25/2007 10:40:57 PM
I really like the way you positioned the girl and the rope in the shot. Nice motion blur capture.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/25/2007 12:45:20 PM
Great color! Nice perspective looking down the rope.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/25/2007 09:52:55 AM
classic!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 09/25/2007 08:06:20 AM
What a great perspective
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/20/2007 05:22:39 PM
i like looking at this
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/05/2007 08:49:11 PM
Can't stress enough, wonderful composition. Unusual perspective really carries this one. A good photographer also takes multiple shots, and that is what I love here.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/05/2007 03:48:17 AM
looking at the original shot to the processed shot you did a great job, colour and saturation is great, I am not a fan of the set up but i know where you were going with it.

well done
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/04/2007 09:10:07 AM
Positives:
Nicely captures the idea of spinning and childhood fun. The blur very nicely shows circular rotation and is its greatest strength.

Technicals:
The background hurts this image. You said, "would've brightened up the background, which I wanted to avoid, so I skipped it". Understood that you wanted the spinning child to stand out. Ironically, though, this may have helped reduced the score more than helped it because the BG is dark and has no interesting detail whatsoever to interest viewers. The BG is more distracting from your subject than supportive.

Overall the image seems dark and oversaturated into the reds and browns. There is a distracting blue speck lower left of your subject. Might be slightly oversharpened.

In motion blur images you want the still detail to be sharp and interesting for the viewer to look at and to provide a solid visual base for them WITHIN the image.

The Challenge:
No question. Meets the challenge very well. Overall technical quality affected your score more than challenge topic.

Suggestions:
The concept is great and you captured spinning very, very well. You just need to work on the technical quality of the image and add more supportive interest for viewers.

Perhaps you could put a blanket or solid colored tarp of some kind on the ground under your subject and add a toy to improve viewer background interest. A complementary color like yellow might work well.

Perhaps you did try and reject this, but a slightly longer shutter speed than 1/20th, maybe 1/10th or more, would work to. Back off on sharpening a bit and perhaps employ noise reduction to make the motion a little smoother. That can be tricky without making the rest of the image look 'plastic'.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/04/2007 09:03:40 AM
Really, really nice work Jeff! Looks like something I'd be proud to have taken, and better processed, too.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/04/2007 08:39:47 AM
I'm impressed. For someone who claims to not understand art, you seem able to cretae it. And judging from your description, it was deliberate. You picked the right picture and you made the right processing decisions.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/04/2007 02:51:55 AM
Even though it's different, I like this quite a lot. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would twist my swing up all crazy and spin around like that. Color contrast is very nice and so's the comp. good job.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
04/02/2007 10:30:33 AM
really good concept and cool perspective, wish ground was just a bit lighter to bring out your subject more.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/01/2007 04:01:04 PM
This is like a color bucket. 9
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 03/29/2007 09:45:53 PM
Very nice. I questioned the crop, but as is, it adds to the playground "feel" for what is going on. Could the rope have been more in focus? ... 9
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 03/29/2007 06:55:05 PM
interesting angle. same idea as others, but i like how this one stands out. good job.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 03/29/2007 02:47:16 PM
Fantastic. Love the rich browns and red tones. Excellent composition and point of view.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 03/29/2007 10:29:03 AM
By far the best of the "spinning swings" I've seen so far.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 03/28/2007 06:03:13 PM
Probably one of the best "swing" series I've seen up to now (58% through). Creative angle, but except for that it's a lot of swings!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 03/28/2007 03:11:19 PM
Great shot. I love how this makes your eyes go wacky when looking at it.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 03/28/2007 06:34:48 AM
This makes my head hurt. Good picture. Well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 03/28/2007 06:13:16 AM
whoa this makes me dizzy the subject is kind of blurry slow down next time
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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