Quote:
Originally Posted by Okayyou
I'd ask yourself what it is with this photo that you found interesting. The guy's face? His clothes? Maybe what he was doing at the time. The way the photo is presented now, it is just a snapshot without much of a focus. If you found his face interesting, a closer shot would be better. If you were intrigued by his behavior or outfit, a shot with more context with a wider angle would be more apt.
A lot of times when you find a subject you like it helps to just observe for a bit. Usually you can wait for a better background or more decisive moment to come into view.
As for the framing of the shot, the afro on the side and the green leafs in the background are too distracting. Maybe a change in position before you shot could have used the leaves to frame his head rather than pass through it.
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Okayyou, I agree with pretty much everything you said. As I believe I mentioned above, I wasn't trying to be particularly obvious when I took these, and it's really only the second time I've really taken any portraits/people shots, so obviously I have plenty to learn. As far as the background, I think I also said that I made the huge mistake of not checking my ISO, thinking it was set on auto, when in fact it was set at like 1600 from the night before's shots, meaning of course my aperture was way too narrow to get a proper portrait-worthy depth of field.
But anyhow, I'm not going to get defensive, as I really do appreciate your comments. Just wanted to explain a few background details, that's all.
Aaron (Glowrock)
edit: As to MayDay's comments above, I definitely do think I cropped a bit too tightly in some of my post-processing. Honestly, it's mainly because of the ISO issue/my own stupidity I mentioned above, leading to a far too constricted aperture, leading to backgrounds that are in far too great a focus and nowhere near as blurred as I would have liked them to be. Ah well, the learning process, eh?
