Okay, I had a shot in abandoned buildings that I had submitted. I thought it was pretty cool, and was going to enter it, but. . ..
When this challenge was first announced, I remembered a shot of a balloon against a dark background, and decided to "recreate" it. Life happened, and I ended up getting a building.
Then, tonight, I was looking at BAMartin's profile (I owed her a comment), and low and behold, look what I saw. . .
It was the balloon shot I had thought of last week, and now I knew I had to do it.
Here's why --
For the next year, BAMartin and I are going "head to head" in open challenges for the Great '08 Motivate Debate. The idea is to have the highest score at the end of the month in an open challenge.
Soooooo, here it is. Not sure how it will score, or if I will beat Barbara this month (she has some awesome buildings in her portfolio), but when I saw the "original" was hers, I had to do it, regardless of my final score.
This is a small yellow balloon (very small -- I think I busted something blowing it up) taped onto a blue balloon. I was too lazy to get the tripod out (should I admit that?) so I bounced the flash from the wall to my right and slightly behind me. Not crazy about the crop but there were these two red dots I couldn't get rid of unless I cropped them out.
PP: In DPP -- contrast (?), sharpen, clarify (?) covert to jpeg
In PSP -- saturation, USM (maybe), noise reduction, resized
I have no idea what caused the black outline around most of the balloon. Maybe sharpening or clarify. dunno
I've also changed it out with one whose composition i liked better (and color), but this one is sharper. might regret that move (sharpness over composition)
predicted score (Hopeful score) = 5.34
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Karma, this story is hilarious. This has been my top scoring shot forever, I think I will never get rid of it. Of all my shots, this is the one that is truly last second. I am embarrassed by it :-)
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