runaway...

A fine and expressive street image,those little kids when walk in the street they show some natural discipline so antecedently and without thought,they often follow lines,certain type shapes,they try to manipulate the world that they do not understand in this form of behaviour,and what a kind of innocent and lovely behaviour,Your fine image have shown that in such a clear and fantastic manner.

A fine Lia and wonderful image.

This is an excellent composition. Everything just fits.

Excellent composition!

Nothing much to add to Saad's insightful comment. I like well worked our contrast between colourful child and dull, grey street. Vignette suits well (though I would have probably tried to keep it a bit more reserved).

Wonderful photo.

PDE

Excellent capture! Your fine image have shown that in such a clear and fantastic manner, and i agree with saad in this point. I suggest vertical shot to enhance depth and sense of movement. My best regards.

Hamid.

Great moment.

Love it

Lovely!!

Great moment, great capture. Love the title. Here the ample room in the crop really works to tell the story - a great big world - a little child with his/her backpack- on his/her determined journey following the lines in the road. Very well done!

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child follows the track so I would focus on this

I like Lech's cropped version so much better. The original subject sort of gets lost with all that empty space filled with blacktop. I don't think the vignetting helps either.
The shot is much better & the little boy much more prominent in the cropperd version

The crop is fine and the feeling
A child walking in its one world.

Lech's crop is more appealing to me also. It reinforces the sense of purpose so apparent in the child's posture: following that trail, one brick at a time. Which leads me to the title. The title bothers me. It certainly must have meant to be tongue-in-cheek but for me brings negativity to an otherwise precious moment . And, too, the child isn't running. But then I'm not sure that titles are meant to be part of the critique. Nice capture, Sid. Good crop, Lech.

It took me a minute to determine what crop we were suppose to be looking at here as that has somehow become relevant(?). The issue I have with most crops is that they tend to change the nature of an image and in this case it is no exception. Generally, crops seem to come down to one looking at an image to try and have it meet some notion within them and not reflective of an interest in understanding the intent of the person who made the image--or what success they may have accomplished in doing so as presented.

"The original subject sort of gets lost with all that empty space filled with blacktop." If we understand the title here, then is this not exactly how the image should make us feel? It is these sorts of insights that we should use to investigate an image and see, from all that we can gather about it, if what has been done is not exactly what needed to be done.

I don't like (well, pay attention to) titles generally, but in this case it does inform the intent of the image and so I think the crop, since it has been brought up, misses the point--and may be superfluous anyway as I suggest below.

The image itself has been composed rather well and the use of line and color, and the lack thereof, pinpoints our subject rather quickly. For myself, I don't find that there is any lack of focus on what the child is doing, he takes great prominence by size, position and means of color and line and there is no ambiguity to a read of his concentration on his task at hand.

As to the use of space here and the title, I find this image reflective of a parent's view of their child's attempt at freedom--very controlled and tight. "Runaway" becomes that knowing smile parents exchange when their children make such "bold" moves.

A bit more ominous rendition might have been to include much more "empty" space, letting the child become lost within it, but that is another photo and I believe the three dots in the title ... also add to the intent here.

Finally, as to the vignette, I do feel that is a bit heavy. Some cameras do create these sorts of vignettes but here, and in the other images in this category, it is clear that it is added and maybe a bit too heavy handed. I almost always add some containment to my own images, but the trick, IMO, is for it to not attract attention but become integral. On the other hand, I do know that many will probably like this and it is maybe a more minor issue, all things considered. In some ways, this "focusing" adds to that "control" factor I suggested above.

John,
The crop we're talking about is Lech's. It brings much stronger attention to the subject than the original. I still say all that soft focus blacktop offers little but negative space, which doesn't serve the subject well

What a wonderful photo of simple childhood pleasures. Do adults do this...try to follow a track with careful steps? Very rarely. Children have such a desire for play that we as adults have lost. It's as if the world is so new to them and so old to us. This photo captures that sense of adventure in the world that belongs to children.

Regarding the technical issues, a crop of this photo, to put it mildly, is absurd. In a photo that consists of a relatively uniform gray with a single curving track down the center, and with a single person with a bright red backpack walking in that track, do our eyes not know where the main subject is located? Do we need a crop to help us find that subject? The crop loses that sense of openness and the sense that the child is wandering and has so much freedom to wander. The proposed crop constricts and limits the child and, IMO, lessens the photo.

Sid has applied some vignetting, and in this case I think it is a good application. It's good not because we need it to help isolate the child, but rather to reduce the uniformity of a bland background of uniform gray. It simply softens the edges of the photo. The vignetting might be a touch too strong, and I'd experiment with reducing its density, but I wouldn't remove it.

I do agree with Sthphen and John, any crop will simply kill this lovely image. The empty space is essential to convey the feeling of the baby in front of a great world to discover, looking for firm guidelines... And that's also the reason why I don't like too much the vignetting: it is clearly the creation of an external observer (the photographer), and distract me from the main character of the photo (i.e. the baby).

Quite honestly, I am not seeing it. It's not a poor photograph, but it's not a great photograph either. I don't really think it leaves much up to discussion, aside from some comments left about childhood, and I think other images might be better at illustrating this aspect.

While somewhat well composed I don't like the choice of aperture. I think that this poor choice has been attempted to be masked up by the rather cheap-looking vignette. I'd like to see the background sharper or softer, though right now it appears muddy. I'm also not sure how I feel about the tonal choice for the asphalt, and IMO could benefit from some increase in contrast. There is also some kind of selective sharpening along the track, or selective blur in the asphalt, and I feel this is not subtle enough to be convincing.

Don't get me wrong, it's an OK photograph. I just don't really see what all this praise is about, nor why the "Elves" had chosen it; I know that POW isn't about the "best" image, but i just don't see what there is to discuss aside from a few artistic choices that I think could have been executed differently.

I think it's a sweet snapshot and the really strong blur is (maybe?) trying to make it something it's not.

The composition and subject is fine...so why this need to apply this distracting artificial vignetting?
Lens makers go out of their way to eliminate lens from causing vignetting and then people get all carried away with photoshop settings.
A classic case where the photo would have been best served if left alone.

I agree with the positive comments about the photo. I'd like to add that, for me, much of the impact from this image comes from the child's head being down. I was trying to imagine the same image with the child looking up, or ahead, and I think it loses a lot. I'm also drawn by the subtle red hair. The center of energy emerges from those two elements for me - the red head and looking down. In grade school, we were always taught to stay within the lines when coloring. I think the child is trying to stay on the line, perhaps imagining that that he needs a line to get started, but that sooner or later, he will let loose and drift in many directions. Excellent image - lots of food for thought. I wanted to add that I am with Penfold on thinking a crop is absurd - the space defines the photo.
Sam