Skids are for (big) kids

Skids are for Kids – it doesn’t matter how big the kid either, so it would seem!    

The photo was taken at the end of the day on one of my top holidays and on one of my favourite MTB routes.

The route was Jumpingpound Ridge in Kananaskis - Canada. Short but very sweet. Finishing a fantastic day out with a big grin on your face really brings out that big kid from within. I love those kind of days.

I really wanted to capture and highlight the movement of the Mountain Biker. I like a photograph to show (as close as possible) the feeling and emotion, which becomes stored as a 2 dimensional static image. 

My first job was to remove the sign, which detracted from the main subject. Then I blurred the background and highlighted those bold colours of the bag, helmet and bike. Finally I strengthened and sharpened the grit and dust kicked up from the skid. This gave the photograph the full impact of movement.

Professional touch

I’m not one for clutter. In an odd kind of way I find something really satisfying about a big spring clean - soul cleansing almost. 

This peculiar side of my personality is probably why I like being out in the hills so much. The clutter of the normal mundane drag of life isn’t there. It’s you, your essentials and the mountain – oh…and also a couple of bonkers friends to add a touch of hysteria – or is that just my friends?

There’s an element of this side of my personality evident in the photograph below. The first photo is the original, full of colour, activity and a few unwanted objects: I mean the confetti not the people just incase any of you are reading this!) It's a nice enough photograph as a memory but the main subjects appear a little lost. To regain the focus I made a number of adjustments. I cropped the image to significantly reduce the noise in the background and added a filter adjustment to blur its movement. To add quality I converted it to a black and white image and using the photoshop clone tool I removed the unwanted confetti over the face. 

By not including those busy elements of the original photo it creates a bigger overall impact on the viewer. The senses have less to focus on so so the visual impact is greater.