Superhero Island

Today's photo was taken on Superhero Island at Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida (the same park that also has the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" attraction). Right after eating lunch we saw the cast of superheroes arrive to pose for pictures and interact with park guests. An "alert" siren sounded and they rushed back to their vehicles so they could "save the day" (although I am not exactly sure what they were "saving", more on that in a bit!) I decided to get some shots as they were ready to ride off and didn't even realize that Spiderman "posed" in the first shot until I got home (I took about a high-speed series of about 15 shots in roughly 4 seconds to be sure that I captured some good shots).

Shortly after they left Dr. Doom appeared to also take photos and interact with the crowd. I understand the excitement of seeing comic book heroes in real-life, but I can't understand why so many kids wanted shots with the evil Dr. Doom. I was the only one booing him. Oh well!

The processed HDR shot is taken from one RAW photo, with the processed image consisting of -1,0, and +1 shots. I added some bokeh to an entire layer in Photoshop using Alien Skin Bokeh 2, then desaturated that shot using Silver Efex Pro 2. I used the masking tool to "carve" out the original saturation (and clarity) of the superheroes, ATVs, and flags (unfortunately the flags on the back of the ATVs were old and faded, I tried to make them look "new" but it ended up making the flags too "fake" and I didn't like the outcome), then merge the layers together to give the background a fuzzy and black and white look. I then merged that with the original to create a slightly "ghosted" look to the crowd, so it sort of looks like a mono-chromatic background like a comic book scene.

Superhero Island

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view the photos that I have posted in various sizes. Thanks for stopping by!