Maurice Ping Leung
March 2026 - New Experience for Chinese New Year
About the Image(s)
Lion dance, dragon dance and firecrackers are some of the popular
activities for the Chinese New year celebration. In particular, Lion
Dance required 2 people to dress up as the "lion" to perform on a
special stage, or even amongst a relatively crowded area --as in the
canteen. This picture showed a non-Chinese family getting very excited
to be able to take a photo with the "lion" dancer. The father and
the 3 children are all smiling and the mother is showing her obvious
grin. The family visited Hong Kong during Chinese New Year
equipment: Sony alpha 1 20-70mm at 35 mm f/4 1/50 ISO50
post processing : capture one with minimal cropping
and slight burning dark the background
2 comments posted
This photo is quite sharp for being shot at a shutter speed of 1/50. The expressions capture the excitement of the family. I expect you didn't have the opportunity to take a lot of shots of the scene, but I feel it would be more effective with a little more room at the top where it looks like part of the costume is cut off and at the bottom to see the lion's feet and to avoid a bit of an awkward cutoff of the family's legs. I think lightening the subjects a bit would keep the overall image from feeling quite dark. Posted: 03/11/2026 09:37:20
(Group 4)
Hello Maurice, this is a fun image that shows the emotion of the Lion Dance and the impact this has on the people around them. I love the color and my eyes are directed directly to the lion, and to the woman on the left. The fact that the family are no looking at you suggests that this is not a staged image, but rather they were posing for someone else. I note in your description that you applied a 'slight burning dark the background' suggesting that you deliberately darkened the background to hide elements. This is actually not permitted in photojouralism and you might want to review the editing rules that apply to Photojournalism images. These can be found here:
https://psaphotoworldwide.org/general/custom.asp?page=division-definitions
Scroll down the page until you find the matrix of allowable/ non allowable editing techniques.
I did find your main subjects quite dark and have taken your image into photoshop and applied the following:
I've increased the exposure so that the family are now brighter, especially the man on the right of the lion.
I've also cropped away some of the right of the image as I felt this did not add to the story. Both of these techniques are permitted in PJ.
I hope you got a lot of images from this celebration. Posted: 03/12/2026 01:46:15
https://psaphotoworldwide.org/general/custom.asp?page=division-definitions
Scroll down the page until you find the matrix of allowable/ non allowable editing techniques.
I did find your main subjects quite dark and have taken your image into photoshop and applied the following:
I've increased the exposure so that the family are now brighter, especially the man on the right of the lion.
I've also cropped away some of the right of the image as I felt this did not add to the story. Both of these techniques are permitted in PJ.
I hope you got a lot of images from this celebration. Posted: 03/12/2026 01:46:15