Like my three-year-old is ever actually peaceful, lol. Yes, the centering is purposeful; I liked the way the light was falling around him, and the texture of the leaves. My husband's legs were once in the right edge of the photo... I edited them out. Would love some critique on this one. Thanks! Aurore
the light, the centered subject and the way he is sitting, with his back on us and the face (i suppose he's looking a little upwards) hidden, makes this pic very mysterious and almost haevenly/ angelic. i particularily like the texture on leaves, it gives such a strong effect! straight to my fav. warm regards, V. PS I admire your work,
because we can't see the child's face it's not *your* child any longer, but a child or even * the* child. The expression becomes archetypical, which is what good photography is all about i believe. And yes, i too feel the highlights are a little too strong and rather distracting than helpful. i like this pic a lot!
This pauvre ptit photo is languishing here with a mere 4 comments. Dommage! I'll add another. But what can I say? I could wonder out loud just why it's languishing: not nearly so over-the-top as your mainstream work, sort of approachable in fact, a child lost in the contemplation of whatever children contemplate (the light, the passage of time, the non-reality of bedtime). Not so simple as it seems, really: the child is turned away from the camera, we're invited to look not at the child's face, whoich is normal (and banal). Please people, look at this - it's subtle, it requires time, and perhaps a little effort.
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Marc Gougenheim{K:5398} 5/24/2003
Not bad, but not really a keeper imo. Since I'm here to be as honest as I could, I'd say that this picture is very creative, but perhaps TOO creative, and not perfect enough to make it work. TOO creative ? Is there such thing ? I may be wrong here, but I do think so. If a picture breaks many rules to tell me nothing really substantial at the end of the day, I tend to feel disappointed - unless perhaps the aesthetics of the image can manage to take me a step further. You decided to show us the back of this child. That's how you broke the rules. Nothing wrong with that, but the fact is that a back doesn't have a face. What am I getting as a compensation for this lack of a facial expression ? Let's see... I'm getting an interesting pair of shoes: they almost have an expression in fact... I'm, also getting a nice but busy background - with pros and cons. Conclusion: I'm getting overall very little emphasis on the main subject, which is still the child - I think. So this picture must be about his contemplative mood and about this moment alone facing these leaves. Do we see the world through his eyes ? Was that the idea...? Then why not chose a sharp background and perhaps a blurry child...? Basically, something is missing in the end. I feel this is a good idea but it wasn't carried out well enough till the end. The more creative one gets, the more accurate his judgements need to be - imo.
Besides that, technically speaking, I feel your highlights - mostly on top of the child's head - are too strong, too bright. Overall, don't get me wrong, this isn't bad at all - but it lacks something imho.
I think it is fine the way it is. For accentuating the leaves' textures, maybe some more depth of field would be nice. The next big step would be printing black and white photos yourself, if you do not do this already. This way you have actual control over the tones.
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