Shot in RAW, converted in PS CS2, levels, selective color, NeatImage, hue/saturation, a little dodge/burn, save for web.
Fired of the flash manually (held it in my hand) when I heard the camera go off - Human Auditory Flash Synchronization :) Anyway, it was a fun experiment, made in the name of trying to be creative.
Statistics
Place: 118 out of 154 Avg (all users): 5.0678 Avg (commenters): 5.8333 Avg (participants): 5.0588 Avg (non-participants): 5.0734 Views since voting: 820 Views during voting: 279 Votes: 177 Comments: 7 Favorites: 1 (view)
What I like: I love how you have combined breaking the rules with following the rules. You have a great third line with your model (youself) on the rightmost vertical third. You broke the rules by putting your horizon right on the center horizontal line. This works very well! Good tones in the sunset.
What I don't like: This shot is extremely contrasty! I would love to be able to see more detail in the horizon line instead of the almost solid black. You're highlites are almost blown out while your shadows are almost completely black. I wanna see what is there but it ain't there. Nothing here seems to really be in focus. It might be, but it don't look like it is. This is part of the downfall of such a harsh backlighting. It also (the backlighting) makes it look oversharpened.
Why didn't it score better? This challenge was about shadows. You have shadows, but they are overwhelmed by the darkness of the silhoutte of the background. The first thing I thought when I saw this shot wasn't shadow but glowing silhouette of the subject. If you look at the higher scoring shots in this and the other shadow challenges, you will see that the shadow plays a much more prominent role in the shot.
There is shadow in this shot but it doesn't seem to be the main visual element.It's there because of the time of day. The sunset and the light emerging from the guy's head seems to be the focus of this image.
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