Title ideas: Focus, Driven, Determined, Resolute, 4x100 Meter Relay, The Start
Focus of the runner compared to the background, focus of the eyes, focus of the spirit: determined and driven into the race.
Taken at the Daily Astorian Invitational track meet. Daniel Stowers taking off for the first leg of the 4x100 meter relay.
Editing: hmmmmmm, crop, b&c, blur background, dodge runner a bit, burn background, image size (yeah, I don't know why I did that this early), usm, selective sharpen face, selective desaturation of all but red, alot of manual selection to get perfect outline, selective desaturation of everything in background, blur of some people close to runner, minor crop.
Statistics
Place: 93 out of 251 Avg (all users): 5.7029 Avg (commenters): 6.4286 Avg (participants): 5.6230 Avg (non-participants): 5.7863 Views since voting: 954 Views during voting: 340 Votes: 239 Comments: 19 Favorites: 0
I'm glad his head is still in relatively good focus even though he is in motion. I like the spectators in the background. I think the selective desat works here. Sometimes I'm not a fan, but this helped separate your subject from the background. Smart choice. This is one of my few 10's of the challenge.
Something looks weird with his right hand - did he have a baton? If he had, it should not have been desaturated IMO/ if he hadn't it looks like his hand is detached from the body.
Otherwise a good use of selective desaturation, as it makes the runner stand out whereas otherwise he would blend in with the background crowd.
This is one of those cases where a little more motion blur would have helped your score. I think that I may have preferred to see this with the background only partially desaturated.
first thought was that the desat doesnt work, but actually you've caught the moment perfectly and the desat really picks that up. the more i look at it the more i love that posture... can't vote, but it would have been pretty high from me.
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