Santa Cruz Surf Shot

I took this in Santa Cruz by metering off the sky then reframe to take advantage of the backlight

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That's cool. Reminds me of the Endless Summer poster.

Thanks, the waves were big and a lot of the focus was (rightly so) on the surfers. I step back from the railing to look at some of the photos I had taken when I notice people walking towards the water and snapped a number of these shots--this one looked the best.

Nice shot. Any chance you could straighten the horizon? It caught my eye immediately.

Is that a B&W conversion? Some atmospheric colour (late afternoon/golden hour) would look lovely. Cliched, maybe, but very nostalgic . . .

Thanks Damien...

good suggestion on horizon--can't believe I missed that.

no B/W conversion; it was later in the day. I am making the conversion from Aperture to Lightroom 5. I am also looking to improve my post processing so I will play with color and see how it looks. My initial thought is to add a little warmth to the sky

Brad

Nice shot, I like it. Reminds me of surfing with my dad for many years. Makes me want to be someplace warm, by the ocean.

Other than the horizon, I would suggest cropping out some of the foreground.

Thanks for sharing!

(edit) hard to be sure without seeing full size, but it looks like there could be some CA around the surfer's face (right surfer)?

I corrected the horizon line (still can't believe I missed something so obvious);

Brandon, I zoomed in and notice CA around both surfers which was easily removed with Lightroom 5 CA tool. First go around with LR 5 and lens correction tool--pretty cool

Thanks for the feedback

Brad

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as far as atmospheric color, I need to play with that one as I am still getting by bearings with LR5 (from Aperture)

2 edit with warmth

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I lke that background better for atmosphere, but your silhouettes have now gone grey. Try lowering your black point to get them a bit darker.

Nice job Brad, your edits look good!

dodgyexposure wrote in post #17476841
I lke that background better for atmosphere, but your silhouettes have now gone grey. Try lowering your black point to get them a bit darker.

I agree with dodgy here, color is great but I'd like to see black silhouettes.

ok, here we go with blacker silhouettes. I also applied the same edits to a portrait of a single surfer.

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