The Unaware Couple

pisto1981 · Apr 29, 2013

Can i please get some c&c on the following picture. Forgive me if i have posted in the wrong place as its b&w but im still a beginner.

Should I crop the tree out the right? Is to much other stuff taking the viewer away from the focal point?

B&W Couple (1 of 1) by Pisto1981, on Flickr

Rafterman · Apr 29, 2013

I personally think the tree is fine because it looks like that's what the couple is staring at.

pisto1981 · Apr 29, 2013

Thanks rafterman, i shall keep it as it is then

Derrel · Apr 29, 2013

The man and woman do ot show up very well at the very small web size this image has been posted at. I honestly do not think the couple is the actual focal point of the photo: I think in your own mind, the couple is/was the focal point, but the preponderance of the photo is the "scene", the location...the water, the three, and so on . The people seem to be rendered too small, and this is I think because of the distance the image was shot from; using a longer lens, the people and everything else appear of equal size...I think had you been MUCH closer to them, with a shorter focal length lens, they would have been rendered much larger, physically bigger in the frame, and the background smaller, and they would have been a true FOCAL point of the image. As shown this is more of a street scene, with two people in it.

pisto1981 · Apr 29, 2013

fair comments Derrel. I really wanted to get in closer but didnt want to disturb them and i'm not confident enough in my skill to ask if i can picture them yet!

vintagesnaps · Apr 29, 2013

It might help to crop some of the tree but I don't know if it would make a huge difference, you've got it framed nice and straight. You could maybe try adjusting the contrast a little to get a bit more black and white in the image, although it looks better on your Flickr page than it does on here.

If you'd been able to step a little more to the left maybe it would have gotten the two of them from a different angle, at first glance I just noticed her, she seems to somewhat block the view of him. From a slightly different vantage point it might have made it more obvious what they're looking at - I wonder if it's something across the bridge, I don't think it's that apparent as is.

frommrstomommy · Apr 29, 2013

it took me a minute to locate the people.. lol so i think they are not the focal point here. i spent more time trying to decipher what the blurry fluff to the right is.

Majeed Badizadegan · Apr 29, 2013

You have a photo here. It's about 15% of the frame. The rest is pretty ugly and distracting IMO

ronlane · Apr 29, 2013

^that's one way to go about it. I would say that it would be a solid photo, not with the couple as the subject, but just in general. All of the light stuff in the background acrossed the water is a bit distracting to me though.