Pit lane, Catalunya, the Monday test after a thrilling MotoGp Round 7. Dani has come into the pits after a few laps, and is moving around the back of the bike to look at the rear tire.

I chose this as a Photo Editor post to show how a pretty dull exposure can be made into something more interesting by cropping it to focus attention on what you want the viewer to see.

The original image (click on the photo above to pop up the original) has too much clutter. People in the background, Dani is too small in the frame, and he needs to be isolated to make clear this is an image of him and not a general pit lane scene.

The cameraman is VERY distracting. The empty grandstand is something that might be included to tell a different story, something like: work going on at a test. But I like the rider’s posture as he moves around the back of the bike, and wanted the viewer to look closely at that. To emphasize the head-down position I added even more rotation. Certainly some will disagree with that decision, and would have done differently in my place. But as it’s my image, I can do what I want.

Incidentally, the high ISO (1000) is because again I was shooting alternatively into drag garages and then out in bright sunshine, so ISO 1000 allowed me to do both. In general I set the Iso to the lowest setting I can get away with in the given light situation.

The final image is shown above. Click on it to see the unprocessed RAW file.

Photo Editor posts are intended not as examples of what YOU should do, but as examples of the decisions the author made to achieve the results he or she desired. We hope these posts will suggest possibilities of technique and editing to help you find the look you want for your own images.

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