Which do you like more? C&C

EmMcCon · Oct 11, 2011

I took this in my photography class, it's a picture of another student taking a picture of our teacher. What do you think? Here's the original

IMG_1808 by EmMcCon, on Flickr

which of the following edits do you (forum) like more?

1.

IMG_1808-2 by EmMcCon, on Flickr

2.

picture-seption by EmMcCon, on Flickr

If you don't like either please edit away.

jmtonkin · Oct 11, 2011

I'm really not fond of the composition of this shot. If you hadn't told us that she was taking a picture, I'd have never known. The backs of people are often not the best angle to shoot at. Also, I don't like the tilt to the picture (personal preference on this I suppose). As for the editing, I think a happy medium between the first two would be best. Two looks like you bumped the contrast up way too high while number one could use a slight increase. I'll leave the editing of this to someone else...

H4X1MA · Oct 11, 2011

#2, but the blown out hair still does some damage. As you will find, selective color is pretty much hated on here.

jmtonkin · Oct 11, 2011

I changed my mind and decided to give it a go. The first one is your first one, the second is mine and the third is your second one. I hope this shows what I mean. In my edit, I also cropped it a little to get rid of some of the excess space.

EmMcCon · Oct 11, 2011

I see what you mean thanks. I always seem to bump the contrast up too much

EmMcCon · Oct 11, 2011

Here's my re-try
I did my best to recover here hair(they won't let us shot in raw yet :grumpy:

)

picture-seption_2 by EmMcCon, on Flickr

Tomasko · Oct 11, 2011

H4X1MA said:
#2, but the blown out hair still does some damage. As you will find, selective color is pretty much hated on here.

Actually, you're wrong about this. Selective coloring is a tool like any other. People just often can't see when is the right time to use it, that's all.
Take the last photo in this thread as an example. Selectively colored dress? Why would anyone want to draw viewer's attention to her dress? It's a nonsense.

op said:
I did my best to recover here hair(they won't let us shot in raw yet

Why?

Jace · Oct 11, 2011

Not sure why you would need permission to change your camera settings...

KmH · Oct 12, 2011

Please explain why you tilted the camera?

What does that add to, or do for, the photo?

Bitter Jeweler · Oct 12, 2011

The back of peoples heads rarely make compelling images.

spacefuzz · Oct 12, 2011

Id like it better if the student was in focus and the teacher was blurred.

gsgary · Oct 12, 2011

What did you get for it E- if you did you did well, worst shot i have seen this week sorry but it has nothing going for it

Geaux · Oct 12, 2011

oy, my neck!

Studio7Four · Oct 12, 2011

gsgary said:
What did you get for it E- if you did you did well, worst shot i have seen this week sorry but it has nothing going for it

It was for a class - without knowing the assignment, how can you judge what grade it should get? Sure, the ultimate goal of a class is an overall great photo, but until the class gets to that stage I would expect that the grade on any given photo would be largely based on that assignment with a bit of influence from previous assignments. Perhaps the OP (and anyone else posting photos from a class) would help us out by posting what the assignment was rather than posting just the photo and asking for open-ended C&C...

Oh, and Tomasko...just hypothesizing, but RAW gives you the ability to recover things that you missed in camera, such as exposure. I'd expect that a class, particularly if the assignment were, say, to work on exposure, would remove that safety net to make the student get it right in camera (which should be the goal for all of us, right?).

OP - C&C per request (on the photo on its own merits, since we don't know the assignment):
- I am not a fan of the tilt. IMHO, tilt is a tool which can be used for very specific purposes. Unless it adds to the photo I personally find it very detracting, and this would be one of those cases. Do you see the tilt as making this a better photo than if were vertically aligned?
- I am not a fan of the composition, or should I say the framing. I see where you were going with the scene, capturing photographer and subject, and I like the overlap of the photographer and subject. And since you were capturing it rather than staging it you were limited in composing with the surroundings. What I don't like is the amount of dead space above and to the left of the people (which I see you corrected in your edits). Capturing that dead space a) put the subjects too centered (again, corrected by the crop in your edits) and b) forced you to cut off parts of their bodies. I don't really mind where the crop ends up on the photographer, but it might also have worked a bit lower/to the right, which would have allowed you a better cut across the subject.
- As for the editing, I like how you are dialing in the saturation. I am not a fan of the selectively colored version. As has been stated, the dress is not the subject of your photo, so you don't want to use selective coloring to bring the focus to it. However, from a technical standpoint it looks like the selective coloring was done well.
- I like your depth of focus. You have the teacher enough out of focus that it is clear your subject is the photographer, but the teacher is not so blurred as to become an unidentifiable, distracting blob.