Achievement.

[jiro]

Thank you very much for viewing.

Click the image to view it in lightbox.


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Nikon D70, Nikon 18-70mm lens set at 18mm, Exposure at ISO 200, f11 at 1/400 second, Matrix Metering in Manual Mode, Color Processed in LR 3.

[abhi]

Talk about perfect timing! I can sense the determination on the boy's face.

I feel that little more dodge/burn is needed to separate the hands/arm of the kid and his father (?) from the background. That will really emphasize the feeling of achievement that you wish to convey. Maybe darkening the hands instead of lightening??

A difficult shot to capture, and I think you have done very well. Congrats, Jiro.

[Shambhala]

I love this Willie, it reminds me of a Norman Rockwell, You wouldn't happen to be in Canada around the end of June would you... My son is swearing into the military and I need pictures.. LOL.. You do such a great job of capturing the moments.!!

[Peter Ryan]

Great timing Willie. Also very good composition. Theplacement of the fathers on the side is not too close to the edge but you haveleft plenty of room for our hero to shine.

[Donald]

Willie - You have certainly mastered your B & W conversion workflow. They're now consistenly hitting the top shelf so far as quality of conversion is concerned.

It's a pity about that guy just behind the child, but I love the whole story in the image. Yes, we're in no doubt as to who the main subject is. But look at what else is going on: The guy on the right looking back over his shoulder; The guy at the back clapping his hands and shouting (hopefully) encouragement; The little girl just taking it all in.

It's brilliant.

[jiro]

I love this Willie, it reminds me of a Norman Rockwell, You wouldn't happen to be in Canada around the end of June would you... My son is swearing into the military and I need pictures.. LOL.. You do such a great job of capturing the moments.!!

Thank you very much, Shannon. Who knows, I may find myself living a nomadic life sooner than I thought and I might go to Canada if I could.

[jiro]

Great timing Willie. Also very good composition. Theplacement of the fathers on the side is not too close to the edge but you haveleft plenty of room for our hero to shine.

Thank you very much, Peter. Everything was happening too quickly at the time I took this shot. I set my camera to continuous auto-focus but I kept on having problems focusing since the camera basically focuses only on what is at the center of the viewfinder (that would definitely mess up with your composition). I had to think fast because I can't replay everything that is happening and all opportunities to get a decent shot would only happen on a one shot basis (talk about the advantage of 8 - 10 fps burst mode here). What I did was to change the setting of my camera to Single Auto-focus, then I went to Manual Mode on the exposure. This was shot at high noon so everything is very bright. I can't meter the sky since there was not even a single patch of cloud to make an overcast reading. The track was not red but brick red to it's probably off by +0.6 - +1.0 EV. I remembered what I've read before on an Exposure Understanding book - "... meter the green grass if you are outside when you have no way to reference your exposure' and I did. I opted to go for an f/11 opening so if I mess up with the focusing I know that I can still have a usable shot due to the deeper plane that is in focus. The camera said that it would produce a shutter speed of 1/400 second, that's great! That would give me enough leverage to have a sharp image and enough to freeze the moment of the boys running. I decided to pre-focus on the numbers on the track just before the finish line. In that case, if I saw the boys coming and they are exactly at that spot that's the time I would press the shutter button to complete the shot.

I wish I could given the boy some more time to go forward so that his hand would clear the guy right at his back but it would be hard. at 3 fps, I could have lost the shot so again, I simply rely on luck and timing. Of the 20 shots that I took this is the most promising one so I concentrated on processing this and decided to do it in black and white. I always love to go black and white whenever I want to convey emotions. I don't know why. Maybe, I find purity in it and it makes the image or the emotion stronger.

Thank you very much for viewing, Peter.

[jiro]

Willie - You have certainly mastered your B & W conversion workflow. They're now consistenly hitting the top shelf so far as quality of conversion is concerned.

It's a pity about that guy just behind the child, but I love the whole story in the image. Yes, we're in no doubt as to who the main subject is. But look at what else is going on: The guy on the right looking back over his shoulder; The guy at the back clapping his hands and shouting (hopefully) encouragement; The little girl just taking it all in.

It's brilliant.

Thank you very much, Donald. Yeah, I know about the guy at the back. I really wish I could have pressed the shutter just a bit later to make the kid go past that guy but I would lose focus because I pre-focused on a certain spot of the track. Maybe, I got lucky again here that the whole scene came out acceptable and got a keeper.

As for the processing, what I did realize is that if the colored version has enough color information in it (not washed out or underexposed) it would translate to a better black and white conversion. Also, I've change my workflow by forcing Lightroom to work on 16-bit tiff files when exporting the image to photoshop. In that way, photoshop can have more data to process when I do my final tweaking of the image and then simply convert it to jpeg as another copy for uploading to flickr.

Thank you very much for viewing and for the nice comment.

[jiro]

Talk about perfect timing! I can sense the determination on the boy's face.

I feel that little more dodge/burn is needed to separate the hands/arm of the kid and his father (?) from the background. That will really emphasize the feeling of achievement that you wish to convey. Maybe darkening the hands instead of lightening??

A difficult shot to capture, and I think you have done very well. Congrats, Jiro.

Thanks, Abhi. I did try to do that on another copy of the image but it looks unnatural to me so I decided to keep it this way. Everything is happening so fast at that time so I only pre-focused at the spot on the track where the numbers are just before the finish line. When I saw the boy arriving at that pre-focused spot that's the time I pressed the shutter button hence the location of his hand directly at the back of the guy. Once I can upgrade my D70 to a D7000 I think I might have a better chance to do that next time. Hehehe.

Thank you very much for viewing.

[abhi]

Hehe. D7000 or 300s? It's a very good shot you have here, just a pity that the man was standing behind the boy. Did you also do any panning practice there?

[jiro]

Hehe. D7000 or 300s? It's a very good shot you have here, just a pity that the man was standing behind the boy. Did you also do any panning practice there?

Actually my dream camera is a Nikon D700 but considering all the features of a D7000 and its price, that would be a more practical and achievable dream for me. Hehehe. I haven't fully practiced panning but that is on the list to learn.

[Peter Ryan]

Two things Willie.

1. Is there any chance of you detailing your B & W conversion is PS; and

2. I see you've had a haircut (new avatar).

[tb72]

Very good shot and treatment Willie, congratulations

[speedneeder]

Great shot.
Am I just imagining halos tonight?

[jiro]

Two things Willie.

1. Is there any chance of you detailing your B & W conversion is PS; and

2. I see you've had a haircut (new avatar).

Thanks, Peter. Pardon me for not seeing your comment on this image. I'll try to make a tutorial on how I do my b&w conversion, Sir in the near future. Hehehe.

As for the new avatar, I had to return to my old hermit look at Katy doesn't want my new Ex-Machina look.

[jiro]

Very good shot and treatment Willie, congratulations

Thierry, thank you very much for your kind comments.

[jiro]

Great shot.
Am I just imagining halos tonight?

Thanks for viewing and for the nice comment, Brian. Haven't notice you for a while. My wit seems to be a little off right now, what's with the "halos"?

[Chong]

A very emotional capture for the boy on his achievement. I could still remember & feel how it was then specially in sports Great explanation of your composition Willie. I wish I could understand & do everything that you have explained...no wonder you always have great shots I wonder how will your photos would be on a slick camera like D7000 Thanks for sharing this to us Willie! Mabuhay ka!

[jiro]

A very emotional capture for the boy on his achievement. I could still remember & feel how it was then specially in sports Great explanation of your composition Willie. I wish I could understand & do everything that you have explained...no wonder you always have great shots I wonder how will your photos would be on a slick camera like D7000 Thanks for sharing this to us Willie! Mabuhay ka!

Salamat, Chong. I also thought the same thing. It would really be cool to have a new DLSR and compare the picture quality. I haven't forget you, Sir. I am preparing a tutorial on my black and white conversion and would be posting it soon. Thank you very much for your nice comment.