Let the eyes tell the story

 
PLEASE CLICK to view a larger image for the best results

There are many elements to this picture, to me the one that is the most important are this girls blue eyes. This girl was laser focus on catching this Frisbee, and the viewer gets drawn in with her pale white skin in this dark scene which leads you to her bright blue eyes. You may need to maximize your browser to see the Frisbee, and this is really best viewed in a larger size so click the image to see a much bigger version. I love the colors and the story this image tells, but it all starts with the eyes to me. While this image lacks my normal “eye treatments”, it is still pretty solid on its own. I’ll work it some more eventually, but for now I’m plenty happy with the results. Another funny note is that she actually dropped the Frisbee, but you’d never know it leading up to this point would you?

This image was shot with a Canon 1D-Mark III in JPEG LARGE mode (no CR2 RAW for performance reasons) using a Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM lens (courtesy of LensRentals.com) set to Aperture Priority mode at f/2.8 which resulted in a 1/400 sec capture at ISO 800. I used Nik Software’s Dfine to remove a little of the noise, then I did a small curves adjustment, followed by Color Efex’s  Skylight filter to give it some warmth, then I topped it off with a nice Local Contrast adjustment with Sharpener Pro only the girl and Frisbee. In looking at the image, the girls face needed a little acne removal, so I broke the rules and went and did a Color Efex Dynamic Skin Softener  followed by a few healing brush strokes on the final adjustment. To see the difference these edits made, hover over the image to see the out of camera unprocessed JPEG version.