In a message dated 3/18/2005 2:58:37 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It doesn't come together at all, John. Too many people all facing in different directions. There's no cohesion here, just a bunch of people hanging out on the bridge. Where's the story? What's the photo supposed to be about?
Color seems to be a distraction here as well. I did a Q&D B&W conversion using a plug-in I found, and the pic improved substantially to my eyes. The jumble of people plus the jumble of color is really too much. Shel ----------------- > [Original Message] > From: John Francis > OK - We've seen Marnie's shot of a worried parent, > and we've seen a nice treatment by Marco. > > But, strange as it may seem, even I took a shot of > a group of people gathered on that self-same bridge. > > It's not my normal style of thing at all, so I find > myself unable to decide whether it's worth showing. > But I'll never learn if I don't, so here it is: > > <http://panix.com/~johnf/temp/OnTheBridge.jpg> > > Have at it. Comments actively encouraged. > ============ Shel pretty much says it, but I'd add that it COULD be an interesting shot -- there are fathers and kids -- except the one kid who's face in shadow from the bridge, and the two people in the back, one with his head cut off, and one in deep shadow are very distracting. So it needs like two less people, or slightly different positioning on the people. Also the center male's face is sort of off, his expression is funny and his eyes are almost shut, which might work if there were less other distracting elements. I think people shots are very hard to do, I haven't tried it that much myself, but I have learned something from looking at frank's and Shel's and Paul's and Juan's and Godfrey's and other's work on this list. It's hard not to catch them blinking or moving into awkward positions. I was lucky with the weary parent shot, he sat there a long time and he wasn't facing me. Most of the people shots I took that didn't totally tank (but still aren't good because of handholding/camera shake -- I was nervous), they did not face me directly or they held their position for a while. So I don't really know how some of the people shooters do grabs where they get the face and it comes out well. Guessing -- I presume they really, really watch the person/people in question, try to anticipate what they will do next, and that they also take more than one shot if they can too. They also probably have more throw aways than keepers, but take enough so they will have a keeper now and then. IMHO, one can really learn from this list, just by looking at other people's work. Learn a lot. HTH, Marnie
