Family dinner candids - C&C appreciated

[jonslui]

Hey all!
Here are a few snapshots from dinner a night or two ago -- I'm trying to understand composition and photography in general so critique harshly please :hail:
(so far I've come up with the table being cluttered and unorganized, also the paper to the bottom left corner and the chair in the back of picture, also increasing the aperture to get both of them in focus)
(Also, any post editing tips would be appreciated, I have LightZone and GIMP but I generally have no idea what I want to edit a picture to look like )

Family Dinner by jonslui, on Flickr

Candid by jonslui, on Flickr

 

[Designer]

You've got only the man in focus, so crop it down to him alone.

 

[Braineack]

what?! that's odd advice.

 

[Derrel]

The extremely bright area that separates the man and the woman is killing these shots. The bright rectangle is the most eye-catching thing in both frames. This is just not a good angle to shoot this scene from.

 

[ristretto]

In making suggestions, one thing I can't guess at is whether you chose this angle of shot to exclude things on your right hand side. If you didn't, I'd position myself opposite where you stood here, and have the light sources behind me but cast onto the two people in the picture. You'd also have a frontal or more frontal-side view of both people, rather than this back view of the lady. with the camera angle as shown, there's a lot of excess headroom over both people - 25-30% vertically of the image with how it's framed. If you used a higher camera angle looking down, you'd be able to show more of them both, and show more of the table top and situation - giving more context/interest to the scene. As I look at the picture(s), my eyes finally come to rest on the bright light source in the background, because it's so bright and because of where it is placed within the picture ratio of the rectangle. That light source - white shape - is the least interesting element of the picture and yet it dominates the image. If you'd moved your position further to the right, and framed the man sitting with the bright light behind him, it could play a better role as a picture element. That could make a better composition, but probably not as good as excluding it from the shot.

 

[Designer]

what?! that's odd advice.

Yup, that's me.

 

[jonslui]

Thanks a lot for the tips! I didn't even think of the bright window in the back while taking the shot, but now I notice that it is occupying a huge part of the focus while having no context! I'll definitely "recreate" this situation at the next dinner and take some shots from a higher angle, to include the contents of the table, as well as from the right. My only worry is that there are more windows that direction, but you never know until you try, right?
Thanks!
Jon