Photo Critique #112

Photo Critique #112

on Nov 25th 2011 with 9 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. It’s a great way to learn more about photography, express your viewpoint, and have your own image critiqued!

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 Details & Inspiration

  • Nikon D200
  • 52mm
  • f/2.8
  • 1/250
  • ISO 100
  • Vivitar 285HV through an umbrella

The subject wanted to have a senior photo that involved fishing, one of his favorite hobbies, but did not want to have a formal photo. By combining the two, I was able to create a more “fun” photo that made the subject more comfortable and made the family happy as well.

Photographer: Greg Schulze

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 most constructive and helpful comments will be featured on the site. Interested in submitting your own photo? You can do so here!

 
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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I was raised in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. After high school, I left for Western Kentucky University where I obtained degrees in photojournalism and cultural anthropology. I am currently employed by CityBeat, an arts and entertainment weekly in Cincinnati. The work I am doing here is very rewarding and I suspect it will continue to be. I am available for freelance work in all areas of photography.  

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  • edgar chavez

    Buena foto creo que no veo con qeu dispositivo lo disparaste o.O y uiero saber como puedo participar en esta seccion PHOTO Critique

  • Edgar chavez

    Como participo en esta seccion?? tengo algunas fotos

  • http://www.GeraldSchulze.com Gerald Schulze

    Although I do appreciate my photo being critiqued, I would very much like to be credited as the photographer. It seems as if the last photographers name is still listed!

  • http://sripalindia.blogspot.com/ Sripal

    Amazing work
    It doesn’t belong to Photo critique because its flaw less
    Any critique would just be nick picking..

    Gerald or glen

    issue with the photographer name should be solved.

  • dj

    @cameron… how does the wrong photographer get in the post?
    Agree that this is pretty much an excellent photograph – I’ve started several times to list a comment but deleted it because I realized that it was pretty much “picking at nits.” Good job. I knew a boy once who told me that his “goal in life” was to be an “excellent fly fisherman” after a boy scout lesson on how to tie flies. He was the kind of a person who considered the activity of such life-import that he probably would wear a white shirt and tie and have such an intent expression of concentration. I really like this one!

  • http://www.unbrokenhorse.com Sunira

    Good lord, you want me to come up with a critique for this?
    How about… this photo doesn’t belong in the critique page because it’s pretty much flawless? :-)
    Love it. I can almost feel the fisherman’s anticipation. Great work.. probably the best photograph I’ve seen this week!!!

  • http://www.gusmunozphotography.com Gus Munoz

    I think It’s a very well thought out image with a nice background and it works well in B&W. I really enjoyed it.

    The subjects clothes and fishing gear gives me an impression of a photo from the old days.

    I feel that the young man has just finished work for the week and just couldn’t wait to go fishing, so he quickly threw on his wet weather gear over his work clothes and just went for it.

    He looks at peace with what he is doing and without a worry in the world.

    Well done.

  • The Insaint

    It’s interesting that noone really has some critiques on this picture.
    For me, I see a lot of issues that ruin the image (at least for me).

    The subject is straight in the middle of the frame. Although this could be working in some cases, here it doesn’t. Therefore, the fishing rod (should be very important when reading the photgraphers text) is cut away. So to get more dynamic, the subject should have been moved to the right, leaving space on the left for rod and line. That step would make it further questionable to have the image as portrait format instead of landscape format.

    Expression of the subject: improper. He doesn’t look at the rod or the line or something one would expect. He is just “looking somewhere” and the sentence “Is this the right position?” or “Do I pose correkt now?” is screeming from his forehead. Whatever he was thinking of, it sure didn’t match to the themes subject.

    Lighting: insufficient. It’s all just a dirty, grey mass, with an eye popping white shirt. Background seperation is practically nonexistent (leaveing the DoF alone), so the shirt is the only part where the contrast is high enough against the background. Everything else vanishes in some “mud” with the background.
    This also makes me think that the b/w converting was done only with “desaturate” instead in a proper way of tuning each color channel.

    To be honest: For me, the general look of this picture is that of an 1935s catalog picture to sell some kind of flap trousers. Put some grain on and I could clearly see a name, the available sizes and the price of this product in the bottom right corner in this image.
    Besides, if the subject says it “don’t want a formal photo”, I surely wouldn’t let him wear shirt and tie …

  • Hakan Tengblad

    Technically I have nothing to say about this immage but it’s good. However anyone who is or has been into fly fishing can see that this guy is not fishing, he is just posing for a photo. A fly fishing man focuses his eyes on the spot where he want the fly to land and that spot is 100% of the time located in the water.
    In this photo there is an angel between the “rod action” and head and the guy is looking up the sky or tree tops on the other side of the river.

    To improve this immage the objects head should be turned more to the right of the photo, his eyes should be focused slightly down wards and out of the picture as if he was aiming to land his fly on a spot in the water somewhere outside the immage. Further more a fly fishing mans upper body is usually leaning forward slightly in the direction of the intended cast. And lastly, fly fishing requires concentration, this guy has a dreamy unfocused look which doesn’t fit at all with what he is supposed to do.