Title • SG-Blackpool

This is a shot of one of the kite's from last Sunday's display and is probably one of my favourite shots of the ones I've put up recently.

Update: as there have been quite a few questions about the post-processing I thought I'd put up a bit more information ...

This is one of those images where the dynamic range of the camera just wasn't sufficient to capture the scene – as it really appeared at the time, and as I wanted to portray it – so the contrast for this image is controlled by three masked Curves, one for the sky, one for the kite, and one for the kite and foreground. The net result is that the sky is a little more dramatic than it might otherwise have been, the kite is more vibrant, and so so. I also shifted the colours of the kite to a set that I felt was more complementary to the scene.

In other words – and as always I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on this – this is not the image that was recorded by the camera, at least not in some ways.

And for me that doesn't matter in the least. As I watched this kite spiralling from it's tether, as the clouds poured over the horizon, this is roughly what I saw, or at least it's roughly what I wanted to see, and for me that's what counts.

4.02pm on 31/7/05

Canon 20D

EF 17-40 f/4L USM

29mm (46mm equiv.)

f/8.0

1/500

aperture priority

-1/3

evaluative

100

no

RAW

C1 Pro

minor