Thursday, March 25, 2010

HLSR Rodeo Cowboy

I don't know if it's a new category or not but I'm calling this one, maybe optimistically, a "salvage shot." As I mentioned in earlier postings I was setting up on row "T" at this Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo performance shooting with a 50-200 tele at 200mm in low light. In order to have any kind of stop motion I had to shoot this shot @ ISO 3200 and even then the result was underwhelming. The problem is though that I like the composition! Because of this I was compelled to attempt a rescue of the shot. This resulted in a pretty heavy handed bit of post-processing with Camera Raw, CS3, and Topaz Adjust using blending modes at different opacity's, blurring, textures, high-pass sharpening, vignettes, color correction, etc. At the end of the day I like the finished product which reminds me of what you might see if you were looking through an old ViewMaster. Hope you like it.

2 comments:

Wayne Beck said...

The most important comment is that you like the image. The image has a little of an abstract feel. I have been taking a lot of shots at 3200 and 6400 ISO so I now know more about the problems. The church on my blog was taken at 3200 ISO.

Barry Armer said...

Cool shot Larry! Love the composition and post-processing! You've successfully salvaged this one IMO!

Cheers!
Barry