Woman in the snow

[LilyBee]

I am so very conflicted about this photo. I think there must be all sorts of tech stuff wrong with it and its not a a great composition or anything but somehow I like it....I was wondering what your thoughts are?
I took it this morning when I was on the way to the park to take pics of the snow.

 

[Benjo255]

Composition and light are good for me. It's just the the blur doesn't work here. For my taste, this was a case in which she had to be totally in focus, to add drama. She in focus, environment with snow out of focus, would have told a story.

 

[pgriz]

If you google "umbrella in snow" under images, you'll see that this concept has been done many, many times. That doesn't make it bad, but it does take effort to make the image stand out. In your version of the image, the things that are working against it are the busy background (especially the poles which break up the lines formed by the cars and the sidewalk), the lack of sharpness anywhere in the image, and the rather dark center figure. To make the image interesting to a viewer, you need to create some kind of emotional link, and certainly most of us will relate to a person holding an umbrella and walking through a snowstorm. The trick, however, is to simplify the image so that we can clearly see the subject (and even blur is acceptable IF we can connect with the person), and relate that person's situation to the surroundings. To do so, you can either find a vantage point where the background is less busy, or use a wide-open aperture to create a thin depth of field which will also work to suppress the background clutter.

 

[LilyBee]

Thank you for the comments, I learn a lot here which I love.

 

[paigew]

To me it doesn't work because there are too many random elements. For example the object below the subjects right arm & the pole. I think if there was a whiter snowier background the person and umbrella would stand out more.


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[kdthomas]

I'll be a little contrarian here ... while I agree about not liking whatever that is below the subject's right arm ... the message of the image comes right through. What I get is a woman peeking out from her bundled coat struggling to stay warm in the snow, and that maybe the photographer is too.

Dead center composition almost never works for me but it does here and I don't exactly know why

Snow pictures like this always (for me) have the theme of solitude, and being a center of warmth (even if its just for ones own self) in a cold and indifferent world, and this image communicates this to me.

 

[sashbar]

It is a VERY difficult shot to pull out. You always risk to end up with a woman holding an umbrella in the snow . If you know what it mean. One needs a truly great eye to do it artistically. Iconic Saul Leiter images immediately spring to mind. I tried similar shots a couple of times and failed spectacularly.