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June 1987-Death of a Dance Legend, Fred Astaire
June 1987-Death of a Dance Legend, Fred Astaire
annependleton


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: The Year You Were Born (Basic Editing)
Camera: Nikon D50
Lens: Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
Location: Lawrence, KS
Date: Nov 19, 2006
Aperture: 1.8
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/125th
Galleries: Black and White, Self Portrait
Date Uploaded: Nov 19, 2006

 Seeing as I have been a dancer my whole life and traveled nationally tapping and assisting some greats of today I found the fact that Fred Astaire died a month after I was born interesting. I did this setup in my sorority room, it was fun explaining what I was doing. She still thinks I\'m insane.

Set-up was done with my 16x16x16 portable studio box. I set it upside down so that the white top was on the floor and the black was the backdrop. Used two tungsten lights that come with the kit, shining through the sides of the box.

I set my camera up on a mini tripod and held my remote in my hand. I have very little floor space in my room so it was hard getting enough room to do this.

Adjustments made in RAW Adobe Bridge. Some exposure, some contrast, and a custom curve.

In CS2 I converted to lab color and then selected the lightness channel, then converted to grayscale then converted back to RGB.

Neatimage was used to clean up some of the grain. I used unsharp mask: 40/60/0 settings. Resized for web and then sharpened using simple default \"Sharpen\" on CS2. Added a 15 pixel white border and a 25 pixel black border.

I really wish I could have done spot editing to the backdrop, but oh well ;/

I was going for theatrical lighting and it took quite a few tries and some hurt toes, but I\'m actually pretty happy with the results!

19 years ago in 1987 I was born :)

Statistics
Place: 40 out of 102
Avg (all users): 5.8131
Avg (commenters): 7.0769
Avg (participants): 5.6275
Avg (non-participants): 5.8529
Views since voting: 996
Views during voting: 466
Votes: 289
Comments: 15
Favorites: 1 (view)

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AuthorThread
 12/03/2006 03:39:13 PM
yay! '87 rocks! ;)

nice photo, well executed and the message really means a lot to me too, i was dancing for 4 years and hope to continue next year.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/29/2006 02:00:12 PM
Nice. It looks like he's about to ascend into heaven... and his heart beats so that he can hardly speak.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
11/28/2006 11:43:41 PM
great photo, but I don't know if Fred Astaire did an MJ impersonation? Still high marks. 8
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/28/2006 06:53:26 PM
Interesting composition! I don't like the white inner border.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/26/2006 09:58:30 PM
..very nice shot! its almost as if the dancer was being lifted from the ground. i like the b&w..
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/25/2006 01:15:57 PM
Did you take this upside down like the "Spots" challenge? I LOVE the idea and the composition.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/25/2006 11:58:50 AM
Nice composition.
I think the lighting on the left leg could be
a wee bit better.
Great photo.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/24/2006 02:09:30 PM
really like this picture, my pick for a winner!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/23/2006 10:11:50 AM
really nice idea, just looks a bit overprocessed
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/22/2006 08:45:51 PM
Striking. Excellent job on the lighting!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/22/2006 03:19:04 PM
Great idea and composition! I love the black and white. The edges seem slightly soft, but the content definitely holds it own. Well done 8o)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/22/2006 07:39:27 AM
very interesting processing.. the b/w works well..
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/22/2006 06:34:55 AM
Excellent.....
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/22/2006 02:50:49 AM
Lovely idea and I love the use of black and white here. Would love to see it a bit more in focus and less blurry though.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 11/22/2006 01:20:48 AM
the photo looks wierd... like plastic, too much noise reduction?
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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