Introductions and a shot from a month ago

[michswiss]

Hello everyone.  I joined LL couple of days ago, although I've been lurking for a while.  After looking for a good place to introduce myself, I figured I would simply dive in and provide a sample for critique.  I am based in Asia Pacific and am currently working in China.  Stylistically, I tend to shoot street at night, although I can veer into architecture and abstract and have been known to take the occasional shot of the Great Wall.

Jenn

[jule]

Hello everyone.  I joined LL couple of days ago, although I've been lurking for a while.  After looking for a good place to introduce myself, I figured I would simply dive in and provide a sample for critique.  I am based in Asia Pacific and am currently working in China.  Stylistically, I tend to shoot street at night, although I can veer into architecture and abstract and have been known to take the occasional shot of the Great Wall.

Jenn

Thanks Jenn for posting your image. Welcome to this wonderful forum.

Your image  is quite interesting, but I personally think the figure walking actually has not contributed to the image at all. The large poster of a woman and the other poster of the head photos on the left, juxtaposed with the boy playing by himself on the street I think would have made a far more interesting narrative. Even if the person walking was far more to the right, I think would have been better, but his positioning for me seems to stifle everything.

Julie

[LucyA]

Hi Jenn

I too keep getting drawn to the boy playing, I like that corner of the shot in particular. I feel the blurred image of the person walking is detracting from this photo.

[jasonrandolph]

Welcome Jenn!  I too think the image could be improved by cropping out the blurred figure.  The child is clearly the subject, and the other figure distracts from the boy.  Otherwise, I like the "feel" of the shot.  Please continue to post your work!

[RSL]

Jenn, I'll join the chorus. The blurred figure simply doesn't belong in what could have been a very interesting street shot.

But keep doing this. Street is always interesting.

[wolfnowl]

Hi Jenn, and welcome to the list!

Mike.

[michswiss]

Thanks for the warm welcome and clear feedback. This is an 'almost' shot for me.  It works at some levels and there are some elements I really like.   The overall balance isn't there, not sure it's wholly due to the blurred woman though.  But it's street and you can't always get everything right in frame at the moment.  For what it's worth the kid isn't playing, he's trash diving.

I'll post a few more shots over the next several days to give you a sense of my style and then I'll branch out to the rest of the forum.  I'm going to be very interested in how to maximise quality of these sort of shots in print.