Sometimes lighting conditions and scenes are so tough, that taking a subject and background down to its bare essence is one of the few options available. I almost didn’t take these three shots, and then I almost threw them out…..I’m really glad I tried to find a way to bring out the essence of what was happening on the beach that day.
Beach culture varies depending on the beach you visit and who hangs out there. We spent part of our vacation on a small family beach where there were kids playing (even though it was freezing) and people out for a stroll. I took these images with my Lensbaby Edge 80 optic and was excited about the movement of people through the frame. However, when I downloaded them, there were a lot of distractions in the image. I decided to run them all through Nik Silver Effects Pro 2 using the Silhouette preset. After doing some fine tuning to determine how much of the detail I wanted back, I decided I was happy with them. I can still hear the small girl yelling “run” as she chased seagulls on the beach.
pamphotography 
Interesting project!
Cool post and photos. I sometimes use similar effects.
I am curious – what do you use to create your effects?