Photo Critique

Friday Photo Critique #5

on Nov 6th 2009 with 14 comments

Friday Photo Critique is our weekly community project, where we publish a photograph submitted by one of our wonderful readers, then ask you all to offer constructive feedback on the image.

After a few days, I’ll update the post to feature the most helpful and insightful comments. You will also be credited with a link to your website or portfolio, so be sure to enter it correctly when submitting a comment!

Quick Ground Rules

  1. Play nice! We’ve deliberately chosen photographs that aren’t perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
  2. Feel free to offer any type of advice – composition, lighting, post-processing etc.
  3. You can also link to photographs that you feel offer a great example of this type of image shot exceptionally well.

Without further ado, here is this week’s candidate for Friday Photo Critique!

The Photograph

Photo Critique

Photographer: Eric Coelho

Please let us know what you think in the comments – how would you have approached the scene or taken the photo differently? A massive thank you to everyone who commented last week. The post has now been updated with some of the most insightful comments

The most constructive and helpful comments will be featured on the site, and you’ll also be given priority to feature your own work in a future Friday Photo Critique!.

Feedback and Comments

Here is a selection of the most useful and insightful pieces of feedback given on this photo, taken from the comments:

Andy H

I’m not one of those people who think it’s a cardinal sin to cut off limbs and whatnot, but I think one fairly obviously flaw here is the composition. Cutting the women’s heads off in this way, together with the focal plane and the shirts the women happen to be wearing, makes this photo about cleavage and girls having fun spinning – an odd combination. I’m left thinking, “What’s this really supposed to be a picture of?”

I think if the focus had been on the girls instead of the women, even with the same framing it would have been a much better shot. Or better yet, much wider framing.

Can Berkol

As a viewer it’s hard to find the focus on your story. There are to many subjects and I don’t realy know where to look, what to see. Did you want to shoot the hands; did you want to put emphasize on trust, happiness, innocence or all?

There are also few other kids on the background and many other distracting objects.
I think you have just taken the camera and pressed the shutter without any ideas what to shoot for. You’ve just seen a great moment. Sometimes capturing the moment is not good enough. You have to try to capture the moment right.

Here you could have lessen the distraction by using a wider angle; maybe moving back one or two steps would have helped.

If your focus point was the hands you could have tried a different angle and you could have tried to capture all hands connnected and visible.

The other thing you could have done was to capture one or two faces in full – preferablly one the kids face.

Noel

Contrary to everyone else, I thought cutting off the heads is fine. This composition emphasises the connection made between the women and the children through their hands, and cutting off the eyes eliminates the distraction of yet another subject to focus on. The jacket the woman wears on the right is quite glaring though and is distracting.

Try shooting from between and behind the women. That way you could see the faces of the two girls being framed by the mothers, their hands, and the little girl poking her head through, while eliminating the glaring jacket – since the light is hitting them front on, the jacket would be darker shot from behind than in this picture.

Ian G Lang

Critique: The focal point looks like it should be on the hands, but the dark patch and the patterned angles treeing off the center point lead my eye up like from a fire to the sky. I agree with Jessica (above) – The moms needed to cover up a bit more. The background is busy. I all but missed the 5th person in the photo.

Opinion: I instantly thought wouldn’t that shot look awesome if posed and taken from the top down with their heads being slightly cut off around the outside of the image, but with their heads tilted up a bit so you could see them all laughing/smiling.

Praise: This image really captures the ‘fun’ and you can almost see the togetherness. It’s warm and family focused. It looks casual and natural.

David Appleyard is davidappleyard on Themeforest
 
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David Appleyard is a designer and writer based in the UK. He manages Tuts+, along with having founded several design websites including Design Shack and PixelsDaily.  

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  • Andy H

    I’m not one of those people who think it’s a cardinal sin to cut off limbs and whatnot, but I think one fairly obviously flaw here is the composition. Cutting the women’s heads off in this way, together with the focal plane and the shirts the women happen to be wearing, makes this photo about cleavage and girls having fun spinning – an odd combination. I’m left thinking, “What’s this really supposed to be a picture of?”

    I think if the focus had been on the girls instead of the women, even with the same framing it would have been a much better shot. Or better yet, much wider framing.

    • Bryan

      I agree – the focal point is uncertain with the current composition.

      • Rick

        I agree aswell – Don’t quite know what the focus of the photograph is.

  • http://photographyforsoul.com Can Berkol

    As a viewer it’s hard to find the focus on your story. There are to many subjects and I don’t realy know where to look, what to see. Did you want to shoot the hands; did you want to put emphasize on trust, happiness, innocence or all?

    There are also few other kids on the background and many other distracting objects.

    I think you have just taken the camera and pressed the shutter without any ideas what to shoot for. You’ve just seen a great moment. Sometimes capturing the moment is not good enough. You have to try to capture the moment right.

    Here you could have lessen the distraction by using a wider angle; maybe moving back one or two steps would have helped.

    If your focus point was the hands you could have tried a different angle and you could have tried to capture all hands connnected and visible.

    The other thing you could have done was to capture one or two faces in full – preferablly one the kids face.

  • http://www.technicallyorange.com Casey Latiolais

    I agree with Can. There’s too much going on and it’s hard to pinpoint what the focus is.

    I think the background is too busy. I’m also not a fan of black and white when you’re dealing with children. I also see that one of the kids is laughing but you can just barely not see that.

  • http://www.infinite-style.com Michael

    I think the principal problem with this photograph is the framing. Cutting off the heads of the two women is just glaring and very distracting. My first thought is that the picture should be composed with the faces of the two women. However if the subject is meant to be the two children then perhaps cropping the women a bit lower, under their shoulders could be less distracting. Also some thought could be given to adjusting the camera to make the children more dominating.

  • Jessica

    Cutting off their heads right at their overly exposed chests probably wasn’t the best choice. Good to keep it classy but I can see what you were going for.

  • http://danielmorgan.co.uk Daniel

    I pretty much agree with everyone elses comments regarding the framing. I just wanted to point everyone to the little girl being shunned out of the group behind the two women! Made me lol

  • Noel

    Contrary to everyone else, I thought cutting off the heads is fine. This composition emphasises the connection made between the women and the children through their hands, and cutting off the eyes eliminates the distraction of yet another subject to focus on. The jacket the woman wears on the right is quite glaring though and is distracting. Try shooting from between and behind the women. That way you could see the faces of the two girls being framed by the mothers, their hands, and the little girl poking her head through, while eliminating the glaring jacket – since the light is hitting them front on, the jacket would be darker shot from behind than in this picture.

    • shahcloud

      I’m with Noel, the main focus here is not the women’s face/expression but the relation between the women n children…its the hands that tell the story..great work…

  • http://www.outoforange.com Jay Reynolds

    Framing has been mentioned a couple times. I would agree. But, I would like to point out some other things.

    There are some very interesting lights and darks in this image, however they seemed to be washed out. The Highlights and Shadows involved in the main focal region should have more attention towards them (this would also create a better focal point).

    Darks, make them dark. Lights, make them Light.

  • http://ianglang.com Ian G. Lang

    Critique: The focal point looks like it should be on the hands, but the dark patch and the patterned angles treeing off the center point lead my eye up like from a fire to the sky. I agree with Jessica (above) – The moms needed to cover up a bit more. The background is busy. I all but missed the 5th person in the photo.

    Opinion: I instantly thought wouldn’t that shot look awesome if posed and taken from the top down with their heads being slightly cut off around the outside of the image, but with their heads tilted up a bit so you could see them all laughing/smiling.

    Praise: This image really captures the ‘fun’ and you can almost see the togetherness. It’s warm and family focused. It looks casual and natural.

  • Ionut Cirja

    I have just one problem with this photo, I can see any reason why you cut the faces of the mothers…

  • BVBeckman

    Throw in my 2 cents… I found the background on the right side distracting, the main subject seems to have a circular or radial feel to it and here’s these straight lines taking away from it.
    I found a good center point and then added some spinning blur and made it stronger the further I got away from that point.

    I think no heads or faces is a good thing here. Rather than 5 (Did everyone see the fifth ? She’s easy to miss) I don’t know having fun, it’s now easy for my imagination to fill in the identities.

    http://www.zumodrive.com/share/2v6BMTIyZm