Powered Parachute After Sunset

I was thrilled that any of my pictures from last night turned out. A storm had kicked up and pushed takeoff to about 15 minutes before sunset, so I knew there was going to be some serious issue concerning catching speed and handling exposure simultaneously. The result is a "master of none" with a little more blurring than I had wanted and exposure that isn't spot on. The treeline main issue I have with it.

Any suggestions on a way to proceed with this? Fine as is? Increase the exposure of the ground? The chute? I think the sky looks good, and the silhouetted effect of device was my intent.

1) Lovely time of the evening to go out and shoot!
2) Layer the grass/trees and raise their exposure just a bit
3) Play with the crop: Less Sky = emphasis on takeoff .. Less Ground = emphasis on climb out

I smell wall hanger!!

overall a bit under exposed for me. Great shot though. I would consider it for a wall poster

This is, hopefully, going to be me getting a head start on Christmas. I know my father (the pilot) would love to have this printed large and framed for him. It's something him and I have together because no one in the family flies. I don't either, except on this since I weighed the logical risks of death and found I'd likely survive almost every possible catastrophic failure.

Here it is with some editing. Ground, chute, and some minor details. No cropping, yet. Cropping, although the easiest to do, is actually my most hated Photoshop technique to use. I'm never satisfied :P

^^^ Excellent ^^^

I like the edit!

i like the edit as well but it looks just a tad too green to me... look right above the tree line... its green.. but I do like the edit though!

Yeah, it is a bit green. I didn't do any color/saturation editing - only brightness/exposure were touched. I would presume it is because of the yellow sun setting behind the trees with the blue sky in addition to the green tree line.

I did alter the color to blue and it looks nice, but I think it changes the feel of the picture. It's starting more and more to look like it was taken in a bright day sun and that is very far from the actuality of the setting under which it was taken. I probably should have used spot lights to help with focusing a bit

I love it! What a fun picture The edited version is really good!

Definatly has wall hanging potential.

Good job on the edit! I love the colours

Nice edit of this shot!