big jump

[SmartWombat]

Echoes of the end of E.T. with the bike shadow perhaps?
I haven't found a crop that I like.
Is it just me, liking th eoriginal image and not daring to change it?
Or can cropping improve it?

[mdmc]

This is great stuff! I can see two beams of light coming from the upper right, the neg space LL looks o.k. to me. The colors of the bike/rider and that shadow, Excelent!
Good Show!,
Mark.

[julsoph]

Paul, I wouldn't change anything...I think it's a great shot. The shadow is really awesome.

Emily

[dbutler]

I agree. He seems to be coming out of nowhere and falling straight to nowhere! Cropping it would make you lose the dynamism in the action itself. And the shadow is fantastic!

[LeeIs]

I like it as is. I usually look at the photo before I read the description and first thing I thought was E.T. then I read your description and it was there in the 1st sentence!!

I wouldn't crop this at all, I like the purple spot light at the top right as well.

[swmdrayfan]

Wombat, I'm going to go against the flow here, and say I'd like this a lot better cropped. Maybe it's the reflection on my monitor right now, but the shadow is very hard to see, and there's just too much open space. JMHO ;)

John

[Chunk]

It feels unbalanced to me now. How do you like a square crop of the left side that removes some of the top to a little above the trussed beam and has the rider and the shadow about equal distance from the edges? It may be that the original is too noisy to stand that much of a crop.

Shouldn't ET be perched on the handlebars?

[SmartWombat]

Well John, that's why I posted here.
I'm not happy with the large amount of space to the right.
But as I crop it I get the rider too central for my liking.
Also I lose the cones of light from the spotlights.

I shot raw as I always do, so maybe I can increase the contrast.
I don't want shadow detail, I want the silhouette in the spotlight bottom left.

I'd like to see any improvement !
Want to give it a try?
I'll learn form example

[drg]

I've got an idea I'll try this afternoon before the 'game'. Actually before the food when I'll become comatose from elevated blood sugar.

[SmartWombat]

at 1600 ISO it's noisy all right.
but it'll probably stand it.

[SmartWombat]

Thanks, the more ideas I get the better.

[readingr]

Paul,

I think you have this one just right, however there is a crop that can work, not sure I'd bother, which is to make the rider and the shadow symmetrical by cropping in from the right, however you do loose the spot light which to me adds to the photo.

However the only thing wrong is the title, it should be 'mind your head' or 'me and my shadow' LOL

Roger

PS. this is one photo where you want the person exiting the photo not entering - see my latest comments on is centring bad - or whatever that note was.

[drg]

Thanks, the more ideas I get the better.

My original concept did not work as well as planned. I tried this instead. By adding a couple of layers I regenerated the spotlight ( it's only O.K.). If I played with it and changed the sequence of noise reduction and stacked the layers differently before merging everything it could be some better.

I like the original photo and tried to 'change' it first. There's a possibility for a portrait orientation presentation or two as well that makes the rider 'hang' better. This is one that may be better off left as is though its always difficult when one has a photo that is almost what was intended but not quite.

-C

[SmartWombat]

Thanks for the comment, Roger.
I was thinking "ET gets a motor"

I didn't want to crop from the right for the same reason.