yup that last one would be a real winner without the two girls, afraid I cant think of anything you can do about it though

still impressive timing and focus, just sortof spoils the overall effect.

I like the telescope a lot. Nice simple composition, summs up a day at the british seaside!

Cut the boy out, replace background with a different shot.

Have to say the last shot of the boy in the air ... I am so upset those two girls were in the way!!!

And you didnt get their phone numbers?    

As Alien8 has shown it should be easily possible to sort out the problems. Sometimes you just take a photo and then find somethings there that you wish wasnt. Still a great action shot.

First picture you can cheat, take two photos, one with the camera focused on the horizon, the second with it focused on the telescope, combine the background from the first with the telescope from the second and it would be a totally different shot. That would give the whole picture in focus, except you mightnt have wanted that effect.

Thanks for all your comments.

Thanks for the suggestions too!  I did initially do a cut out and place on very similar shot but taken afterwards.  The problem I had is that it looked very false (well maybe in my eyes).  I am relatively competent in CS3 and even with use of very soft motion blurs, blending of layers and cloning I just decided to stick with what was true to the original rather than one that looked a little too perfect.  

What I have done is swapped it for a B&W conversion as the bright red sweater softens to a lightish grey.

 8-)

I think the problem lies with the boy being very difficult to cut out... he does blend with the background with his legs. :\