Old man

[mohammad.ammar]

Your opinions please






500px / Untitled by Mohammad M.Ammar

 

[JustJazzie]

I like the picture, and it seems to be really sharp! However to me, his face looks a bit underexposed.

 

[D-B-J]

I like the picture, and it seems to be really sharp! However to me, his face looks a bit underexposed.

+1

 

[mohammad.ammar]

what about this ??

View attachment 61654

 

[JustJazzie]

what about this ?? <img src="http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=61654"/>

Much better on my screen!!

 

[sashbar]

what about this ??

View attachment 61654

Hello Mohammad, I see it is your only second post, so welcome to the forum and I will try to be as helpful as I can. The C&c reflects my personal opinion and you may have different tastes and priorities.

First of all - fantastic character, well spotted. Nevertheless I have a lot of critique about this shot.

The main problem with the shot is the light. The light source is behind the man's back, so with his white dress and wide dynamic range it is hard to pull off a really great shot here- simply because the light is very harsh as far as I can see. He needs to turn his head to be partly lit by the sun or alternatively completely move to the shadow. You can make some corrections in Photoshop, but it will not give you much needed shadows, depth etc. So watch the direction of the light.

The second problem is the fact that you are not close enough to the man. As a result he is small enough for me to be distracted by the guy on the background, right behind him, who is not really that much different in size.

So the solution is either to use a wider aperture to blur the background, or, if you are trying to pull off a street portrait with a busy background (and often we want to keep the street background), stop down to f/14 or lower (watch your shutter speed) and get closer. Then your subject will be separated without any unwanted background blurr, just by the contrast in size and the perspective depth. This is of course if you do the street portraiture and want to separate the main subject.
Here is an example - not because it is a great shot, I will dump it - but just to show you what I mean. Here is also a lot going on in the background, but despite the horizontal frame and a lot of space the sheer difference in size separates this old man from the crowd. And the reason is - I was close and could afford a busy setting (and he visibly did not like it - this is often the problem, so you have to find ways to do it) Focal lenght here is 62 mm - wide enough for a close portrait and long enough on a cropped sensor to avoid distortion. f/14, 1/125 sec, ISO 400:



With the long distance lays another problem with your shot (in my opinion) - too much of that white dress - the plain white dress takes half of the frame - do we need it? - and the whole composition looks constrained , there is not much air, depth and space around - and again, you can not afford much space there, because the man will look even smaller!

Thats about it, otherwise it is a great photo

Again this is my personal opinion, there is a lot I like about your shot.

PS. I have never been in your part of the world, how do ordinary people and police treat street photographers in your country?

 

[mohammad.ammar]

thanks and I will take your notes in consideration > BUT as you asked it is not welcome to snap pictures in street and there is no such things called a ( rented model ) unless you have some friends want to do so (of course for a free ) or in my case I take it in a public place where as you said there was a distance between me and the target and I can not use any reflectors or go close to him because his orientation or his face will not be suitable always for a nice picture . BUT your notes is right and I will try to use them as possible .

 

[SCraig]

Not that difficult to fix. Real quick and dirty ....

 

[mohammad.ammar]

By the way He has a dark skin naturally .