This seemed to convey the simple essence of childhood... not a care in the world except to pick away a few pieces of seaweed to draw a picture in the sand. Shot on the beach at the Epcot Beach Club Resort at Disneyworld, Orlando, FL. There was a beautiful warm sunrise backlighting some casual playtime.
Postprocessing:
Lightroom - exposure, fill light, recovery, vibrance
CS3 - clone out two tiny spots of lens flare, sharpen, vignette, noise reduction, saturation, border, resize, sharpen, save for web
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Place: 250 out of 417 Avg (all users): 5.4605 Avg (commenters): 7.2000 Avg (participants): 5.4158 Avg (non-participants): 5.5490 Views since voting: 853 Views during voting: 228 Votes: 152 Comments: 7 Favorites: 1 (view)
I gave this an 8. I thought it had so much magic to it. I love how she is exploring the beach in her own special way. The backlighting enhances this genuine moment.
It was a beautiful sunny day. Melissa had run off a little ahead, and her mother had called for her to stay close, stay where she could see her, but on a day like this a child has little heed for the half-hearted words of a parent. A day like this was meant for running, and dancing, and jumping, and playing. A day like this was meant for exploration and discovery.
So it was she found herself at the water's edge, in the sand, so pliant to her fingertips as she etched designs and pictures on the surface. So it was that she was focused so intently on the bric-a-brac and her own little world of imagination. So it was that she didn't notice the rippling of the water just a few feet from shore, a rippling that soon grew an ominous and oily shadow that seemed to suck in the glare of the sunlight. Had she looked up, for even an instant, that dark and evil patch in the water would have sent her screaming for her mother. She didn't look up, not today, not on a day like this, when the sand begged for her childhood hieroglyphics.
Then, with barely a registering movement, the shadowy, oily patch in the water began drifting towards her. It seemed to grow as it came. 20 feet away, now 10, now 5. She laughed to herself as she continued to draw in the sand, the sun warming her face, her smile bright, her eyes awash with delight, and that shadow came. Only inches from where the sand touched the water, gathering in on itself so that it became thick, solidifying... it touched the sand.
"MELISSA! WE'RE GOING!"
The voice broke her reverie, and she stood suddenly and ran off to that commanding call, leaving her sand drawings behind, never realizing how close she had come to never responding to her mother's calls again. Some time later, another walker happened by that very spot, and stopped to puzzle about a strange mark in the sand there, as if a giant rake had brushed the beach and pulled the sand there into the water. He then shook his head at the puzzle and walked on.
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