None Shall Pass....

[PuckJunkey]

I went to a local Rennaissance Fair yesterday and true to form the light was lousy (what I get for not taking advantage of the good light on other days), but I think I captured a few interesting moments from the mock jousting tourney.

All shots were cropped to varying degrees, white balanced (otherwise no curve manipulation) and sharpened a tad with USM. All comments welcome. This was literally my first forray into "action photography" in the 5 years or so I've been shooting, so be merciful (unlike the Black Knight of Doom).


NOTE: WHAT SEB and PENNY REFER TO as "3" is now "1", and vice versa. I tried reloading the photos three different ways but the result was always the same. Sorry for the confusion.

[Seb]

I went to a local Rennaissance Fair yesterday and true to form the light was lousy (what I get for not taking advantage of the good light on other days), but I think I captured a few interesting moments from the mock jousting tourney.

All shots were cropped to varying degrees, white balanced (otherwise no curve manipulation) and sharpened a tad with USM. All comments welcome. This was literally my first forray into "action photography" in the 5 years or so I've been shooting, so be merciful (unlike the Black Knight of Doom).

Note: there are some JPEG artifacts as I tried to keep these files as small as I could for dial-up users. The originals don't suffer from the same.

Hello Puck,

These are all a little flat (colour wise) but I truly enjoy your compostions. I think that they should all turn fine with a little colours saturation.

I like the second and third ones the best. I enjoy how glorious the knights looks in the second one and the way you have captured movements in the third one.

regards

Seb

[PuckJunkey]

Thanks for the comments. It wouldn't be too tough to punch up the colors a bit but this is actually pretty close to what it looked like. I wondered at one point if it would have been better, had the skies not been so uniformly grey but rather stormy. Might've been really cool with a wider angle.

[Yoyo Szeto]

Hi PJ,
The shots depict what was going on well. Did they fight? I just feel the fighting scene should be there.
All the best.
yoyo

[PuckJunkey]

Yoyo... thanks for the idea. Here are a couple of shots more closely approximating "fighting" though I didn't get any actual "hits".

Penny: I tried reposting the more stationary shots with more saturation but for some reason it's not showing up through the site the way it does in Photoshop. Anyway, I agree the colors are a bit sallow. Also note: the picture you like best got it's order reversed when I tried reposting (it's now #1).

PhotoJohn: There really ought to be a way with the upload function to control the order. Right now it seems it posts multiple shots sorted by file size because no matter whether I put the joust in first or last, it now shows up first (in my original post).

[shesells]

Yoyo... thanks for the idea. Here are a couple of shots more closely approximating "fighting" though I didn't get any actual "hits".

Penny: I tried reposting the more stationary shots with more saturation but for some reason it's not showing up through the site the way it does in Photoshop. Anyway, I agree the colors are a bit sallow. Also note: the picture you like best got it's order reversed when I tried reposting (it's now #1).

PhotoJohn: There really ought to be a way with the upload function to control the order. Right now it seems it posts multiple shots sorted by file size because no matter whether I put the joust in first or last, it now shows up first (in my original post).

They are all good shots, but I love the 2nd one you just put on. (with the white horse in front) I also love the top one at the bottom of this post of the two horses and two riders jousting. I also am confused about the posting order. In fact, sometimes when click to look at a thread, the pics are at the top. Most of the time they are at the bottom. I would prefer top but don't know how to fix it. I tried changing the Ascending/Descending choice on the "photo-critique" page but nope. Anyway The subject matter in these pics is unusual and your composition right on. I also feel you could punch them up to give them the excitement they deserve. You're lucky to see a real scene like these without going to the movies. The horses and riders are magnificent.
~ Kit

[PuckJunkey]

Thanks, Kit.

[PuckJunkey]

Wow. That one puts mine to shame. The grass / added color helps but that person did a much better job of panning than I did. I think my shutter speed was just too fast to get that blurred ground / background effect. Next time I'll know though, which is the whole point. Thanks for linking that.

;)