it's not you today.. i'm not sure if the blurring was the right thing to reduce the image size, it looks terrible. the two-thirds crop looks better (not only technically, but also because of the stone texture, maybe), but i know that it does not show the height of the jump..

i agree with cenek - I much prefer the two-thirds crop - the image quality on the 100% crop does ruin the image for me. The two thirds shot gives a much better indication of the scale of things. having said that - wow!! fantastic capture.

LOL. That was a quick swap. Got your RSS feed 2 minutes ago, and saw your 100% crop, which I thought was hilarious. What a dufus. In any case, it was cropped too tight. The faces on the amused people were getting pixelated. I also like the 2/3 crop better, even though the expressions on the faces aren't apparent.

Yep, I'm going with everyone else on this one. I'm not a fan of this 100% cropped one, though it does capture his fall much better. I especially dislike how you removed the mossy green colour of the wall and changed it to black and white. I very much prefer the two-thirds crop.

now it's better ;]

... as my mother used to say: "don't try to be clever!" ;-)

I agree with Pramesh. I was looking at the picture. Went to the kitchen came back, refresh the page, and...........there it was, the new version (lol).

I think that this one tells a little bit more about the story, but in the other one I like the fact that you can clearly see the expression on all the faces. wich, by the way, look so british :). I am Glad you;re not planning to do this kind of things, I want to keep seing the good work of Chromasia. :p

The upcropped image is a great composition, the cropped one looks ugly and overedited - I'm surprised you put that one up front to begin with. I'd still fade out some of the greens though, the image is a bit too contrasty...

lol: the reason I went for the "ugly" "terrible" one is because I thought their expressions told a better story, but you're all right, it's not exactly an aesthetic delight. As for this one being too contrasty: tough, I'm not doing any more editing ;-)

Ah, the things boys do to impress girls.

I agree about the contrast. I think it would be difficult to make anything of this other than a straight "reportage" shot, really. Unless you just happened to be lying directly below him - which could be a bit painful, I suppose.

I may have been tempted just to go for straight forward B&W and maybe cropped the left-hand side a bit.

ok now, i like them both. yes, this last one is very spectacular
the tones and color makes it "wow".

nogger: I tried it in black and white but the people, including the guy doing the jump, got lost in the detail of the stonework.

Well, you were certainly at the right place at the right time. Pity you didn't have the 70-200 on eh?

The current version is better. I did wonder what was going on when I first saw it, whether the wall wasn't vertical and he was kind of half running, half falling down it.

I don't know... I love the story it tells and the color of the stone... but it seems slightly oversharped to me.

Yeah, it is rather an unfriendly background.

A comment on Blackpools entertainment industry perhaps ;-)
It was good to see the expressions in the earlier version. The girl in the middle looks like she's looking at you in the later version. I can see why the change!

Although the composition may not be supremely ideal, I actually really like this shot because of your timing - in the right place at the right time with your camera held up. It only took this guy a second to fall. So it tells a story and piques my curiosity. Not an award-winning shot, but still, timing is everything!

I am not trying to be clever now :) but it's just my opinion that this pic is far better then the previous published. This one shows few people who were unaware of his jump.

Oh, and I read my yesterday's comment (about the wrists) once again - maybe it was ignorant of me and I am sorry if I offended you. Nothing else's changed - 'doll face' is a great photo :)

even with a mound of sand at the bottom. That must have felt like hitting concrete. Crazy.

And yes, swapping the photos is better :)

Did you use the burst mode when you shot this? i.e. can we see the sequence of his fall?

Crazy kids. :)

well caught, looks like a scene from jackass tv, the crazy muppet.

looks great
love it

this must be a reflection on Blackpool...nothing else to do...

Maybe he is a spiderman. :-)

this all began early on when his mother let him jump on the bed. ;))

i prefer this one too. but did you try a crop without the sand ? the jump would appear crazier. congratulations for the timing.

this photo caused me to bust out laughing. very nice.

I'm actually pretty disappointed that you removed the image because of comments. I think you trying to market yourself for everyone is pretty weak.

Ouch, actually I kinda liked the first one too ;), agreed it was pixelated and stuff, but the experssions on their faces is priceless.

curious - theres a mound of sand there.. right? last time i saw one of them, there was a bottomless abyss directly behind it. y'never know dave.. that 15' may very well have been in excess of 20' :P

*nb: ours reached 6'9.. i don't think the skegness beach caretakers appriciated the hole in the ground too much though :( ah well - thats what happens when you don't give people good sand castle making sand!

on a more photo related thing.. i much prefer the er.. the 'default' image. their faces are all pixelated and whatnot and.. i'm just wondering - surely a 20D would be able to knock out something 2x that size without that much bleed. did you downsize, crop then resize? i hope you're not resampling when you do that :|

hey, how high does the water rise here !?!?!?!? that dumbass is going to break his leg jumping off like that !

Full frame. I like the fact that you could assume that no one is noticing him jump. The diagonal cut by the steps across the frame makes it too. Looks almost staged / theatrical.

excellent.

and yes, the crop sucks. since, you know, not enough people told you that already.

All technical elements aside, I'd just like to add here...'Go Celtics!'
Being a lifelong resident of the Boston area, the jumper's jersey was the first thing I noticed:-)

Im sorry David but i particulary found this phototo be very weak, if not one of your weakest. You took at it at the precise moment yet nothing here is very appealing to the photos you've posted in the past. Please don't put one like this tomorow.

Although I’m not a fan of selective grayscale, the original crop posted is much better at conveying the story. In the full frame view the jumper is lost in the scene.

Mann, kids nowadays will do anything to emulate the Jack@$$ boys....a pity.

With everything said, I still like both, even if the photos may not have been the high quality technically, but still an image that made me go, "What the....."

Great capture, will give you props for catching such an spontaneous moment.

Great capture of a complete dumbass.

I prefer this version. It's really dramatic.

It doesn't take much for a Boston sports fan to come up with something stupid to do. I live here, and I can tell you it's an epidemic. However it's a wonderful capture, and now only if I can get people to jump 6 meter heights for my camera...

You did capture a good moment of stupidity: I would do it to impress a girl (maybe) ;-).

I like this photo quite a bit! A spontaneous capture done well like this is worth double point in my book!

Thanks everyone. All I can really say about this one is that this shot was about recording the moment rather than making a good photograph, though it would have been nice had I been able to combine the two. Had I had a bit more time I would have moved closer and would have got a much better angle, but I couldn't do that as he was about to jump. So, as pieces of art go, it's crap, but as a shot that captures a moment in time I don't think it's too bad.

I know there are a ton of comments, but I wanted to add this. Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes author) once said that he can avoid needing a good story if his drawings are awesome, and if the story is good enough, the drawings can be cruddy. I just thought a similar notion applies to this. This photo is about the story and not the drawings. Anyway, that's my little peep. :)

Wow, he jumped high. Is there a trampoline or something behind that sand pile?

Hmm.. I don't know. It could be just me, but i prefer the cropped one, it may be a little blurred, but it leaves more for the imagination.

But hey, don't let a crazy asian bloke change your mind. I don't doubt that for the woman I love, I'd do the same thing ^^.

Keep up the good work at Chromasia

Wooh, you can feel his fear. It's, what, a 25 foot drop?

wow... that's a cool capture.
at first look, it's mind-boggling because you are trying to figure out what is going on

I know I'll probably catch a little hell over this, but one of the reasons I rarely comment or even read the comments here is that the critiquing is almost always obnoxious. Nothing like people picking apart a shot who couldn't do better themselves. I know that David welcomes constructive criticism, but how does telling someone that a shot is one of their weakest or is terrible help at all? Will it cause David to strive for finding kids jumping off of better backgrounds in the future?

My apologies if the commentors are really David Hume Kennerly or the photo editor for National Geographic commenting under aliases.

Actually, I really like the current photo. I like being initially sure that the photo is about the strong diagonal line (and the fact that all the people are forced to travel that diagonal makes it even stronger) and then "discovering" the person who has jumped the tracks to violate that force by literally leaping to the ground.

I like surprises. I don't think it would be so surprising if the background and the line were less assertive. And the jumper's path would feel less odd/corageous/foolish/funny.

I think the current shot is excellent.

this kid looks like he's been suddenly dropped from outer space! one moment in time superbly captured. a winning shot if ever i saw one!
i think you did right in using this shot. the inverted one has way less impact (pardon the pun!)

What a twat! Like your shot though :-)