Still playing with over-exposures

Looking back, I've played with under-exposing plenty of shots, especially sunsets, or when I was zooming around 400mm to increase the shutter speed. But I've not done much intentional over-exposure, until these exercises.

Saturday, we went to our County Fair, and they had some truck drag races in the mud (if there's a formal name for that sport, I missed it). Here are a couple of shots: the first over-exposed by 2 stops, the second set to 1/25 and f8, which was more than +2 stops. I panned with the trucks, using the full zoom; post processing I've cropped, adjusted levels to darken, and tweaked the saturation down.

These shots convey the motion/ action well, and while I'm not ready for a Sports Illustrated assignment, I've got to say that this week's exercises made me realize that over-exposing doesn't have to result in blowing out all of the important highlights.

Which brings me to this shot. The day I posted the memorial arch I also took this shot, and I've returned to it, as it has an attractive quality to me. I took it at f8 for 1/2 second, sweeping slightly along the curve of the bridge. What I like about this shot, is that it gives me the opposite feeling of the actual scene - tension, edginess, mild fear of the unknown. I'm not usually thinking those things, or operating there, but I like this result (as of today).

A properly-exposed shot of the same bridge is shown below (1/25 at f8).