Silhouette

                          

 Practice makes perfect, well almost. Most people have no idea the amount of practice it takes to become competent with a bow. Every fall thousands of hunters take to the woods with stick and string only to come home frustrated. A good friend of mine tells story of heading for the field with 7 arrows and coming back with 3...and no quarry. Growing up my father refused to let us head to the stand unless we could put 3 arrows (in a row) in a ring the size of a paper desert plate at 30 yards. Respect for the game we chased as youth was instilled in us from day one. Every year in early July we would get out our archery equipment and begin practicing and fine tuning our skill for the season that doesn't start until the middle of October. We spent countless evenings shooting until it was too dark to see, then turning on the porch light or mom's car lights and shooting on into the night. Competitions would start up, arrows would be lost, but memories and respect was gained. It is funny how for every memory I have in the woods, I have 2 or 3 in preparation. Perhaps then, practice indeed makes perfect.  

As far as these pics go, I have been experimenting with Adobe Lightroom. The pic above is the one I like best but isn't a true silhouette because you can see the blue in the jeans. This happened when I pulled out the blue hue in the sky. I also had to vignette because I had a bad lens flare in the bottom left corner (you can see it in the bottom picture). The top pic to the immediate left I made black and white and put a ton of contrast in it. The next one down I pulled the clarity all the way down. Almost gives it a cartoon feel. The bottom pic is the original.

I also played around with some older pictures in lightroom. This one I took on Sonora Island, Canada.