Speed Challenge #38 portrait

The Serenity of Youth

Canon 30d & 85mm f1.8
100 IS0, 1/125th at f2.5. +2/3 stop Exposure Compensation.
Late afternoon ambient light.

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# 1 Winner is “Apollo 11.” Andrews shot has it all great colour, composition, handsome subject, and catch lights. Your subject exudes health a true “Rockwell moment.” I’d really like to see your PP on this image; great stuff!

#2 “ShannyD.” Shannon’s shot is also great for all the same reasons but I had to go with the colour.

#3 In alphabetical order “Airfrogusmc,” and “DozerLYP,” Allen’s and Claude’s shots could have been number ones too but for the lack of a stronger catch light in the subject’s eye otherwise same as above for colour, composition and awesome subjects!

Special Thanks to everyone who participated.

Good job Wally and very good choices

Congratulations to the winners.

Awesome job everyone! Congrats Andrew, ShannyD, Allen & Claude!

As soon as I saw Appollo's entry I knew it was the winner. I even told my wife so! Great choices Wally! Congratulations Apollo and the rest of the winners!

great job Wally on your choices and thank you.
Congrats Andrew, ShannyD, and Allen for the beautiful pictures.

All perfect choices Wally!
Congratz all!

Wow, thanks a lot, Wally! I certainly didn't expect this, with all the great entries.
Thanks to everybody for the nice comments, too !

I will think up a new challenge and will post it later tonight.
Thanks again!!

this was great, i'm looking forward to the next one

Congrats to all the winners. Everyone's shots were great, glad I didn't have to be the judge!

Thanks, Eismann!
Wally, as per you posting that you’d like to see the original, here it is. I have extremely limited PP skills, and so usually just do the basics. For this picture, I did the following to the RAW image, all with DPP:
1. added one stop of saturation
2. added two sharpness (I don't usually add this much, but the exposure was good enough to allow me to without it being noticeable.
3. added 1 stop contrast
4. Switched the WB setting to cloudy to bring out the color more. It was an overcast day, and I use my common practice of switching the settings to fit during PP. On an overcast day, the "Auto" WB setting is always cool, IMO. I almost always shoot in Auto, and then correct as need be during PP.
No cropping done to this image.

Here is the original, before any of the above were applied:

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Thanks Andrew, the PP does make a difference but ya got'a have a great image to start and this one is.

Congrats to the winners

Rob