Perspectives #12
Citlalli Rico | Education
It's great that you're trying to see layers. It's a good skill to practice when you're shooting photos with kids. It's difficult to layer because they move really quick. I'm glad that you saw the little baby in the back and instead of just go and shoot her, you decided to add more elements to your photo to make it more interesting. That's a good thought process.
The problem here is composition. You have to think of every image that when we're reading it as a viewer, we start from the top left and then go to the right. It goes left to right and then from top to bottom. The first thing that I see that is actually in focus is the wide space here on the left that has no information. It has nothing that it's important. So the photo immediately doesn't make much sense to a viewer.
The second thing that I see is the baby. So now I understand why you're shooting the way you're shooting. But for the photo to work, you needed an element that would have supported the photo composition-wise, because right now all your photo is just in the right corner. Just keep trying because it's good practice to layer. This is a good way to start. Just make sure that all the elements that are in focus are part of your story and are important.
Linda Bouritius
I really like how the photographer plays with layers here, taking the kids in the front, and then focusing on the little girl on the back. In terms of composition, there could be some things to win from. There are two very large elements - the red carpet and the white floor - that are competing with each other - the red and the white in the image. They are more attracting my eye to look at them then at the actual subject itself. Maybe move a little bit more to the back, use the kids in the front to block the white on the left and make sure the girl is lying there with the little bottle is framed better. By moving a little bit below and to the right, you will see more of her maybe even see her legs a little bit. It would be nice if the end of the image is the red carpet so there's no white on top of the girl and the whites on the left would be as blocked as much as possible.
You've got a nice scene going on here and lots of things are happening with the hands and everything. I would even kick up the aperture higher so there's more details in the front of your image. Just play around this. These are kids. They're doing a lot of great stuff. This is a perfect scene that you can just go crazy and nobody's bothering what you're doing as a photographer.
Stand back and lower to the right and see if you can really fill your frame with the kids in the front and then have the focus on the little girl and from the red standing out with that casual look while she's drinking a bottle. You've got the right ingredients. Now it's working on the composition and maybe also little bit technical points like working on the aperture and see how depth can be increased.
Candice Cusic | Education
I like the challenge that the photographer created for capturing this shot a little girl on the floor. I like the fact that the photographer thought about layer because that's just a wonderful thing that we all need to have in our tool belt. We need to constantly remind ourselves to do during the day.
Is this little girl with a bottle interesting enough? Is this a moment that's worth capturing? There are two ways I see this shot panning out. The first one is that the out-of-focus kids playing with their faces make a really interesting photo. I would like to see that in focus. There's more going on in this photo than this little girl. I would really love to see the whole sequence of what these children are doing. How were they fighting boredom during a long wedding? That's one way of capturing this moment.
The second way is this little girl laying on a red carpet. When I see a nice clean background with a pop of color - like a red carpet - that's all I want to see for my background. If the camera was directly above the little girl pointed down, she could have been really beautiful with these rose petals on the floor.
Paul Tansley
Why take a picture of the baby and not take a picture of what's going on in front? What's going in front looks far more interesting than the baby on the floor.
I find that the red cable at the top and the bottom of that blanket at the right hand corner to be very distracting. I tried a simple rotate of the photo to take that out. The next thing that's distracting is the left hand area of the tiled floor and the little bottom of the table runner is so bright and it's really in focus. Your eye really wants to go to it and then it doesn't find anything there. It's just an empty space. So adding a little brush stroke there to darken that down helps to take your eye off that a little bit. That means that your eye goes to the kid on the floor. I wished that the scene in front was in focus because it looks a lot more fun than the baby does.
