kid by the sea

it's the butt! captivating and defined by spontaneity!

I want to say just 1 word this  photo is excellent Congratulations on your feature of the  week

Such intensity (and flexibility)! This is a wonderful moment of wonderment, found primarily in the young and which largely (and sadly) disappears as we get older. Personally, I'm not too bothered by the items in the upper left corner. I'm willing to assume they are the beach towels and perhaps family members of this young girl; to me it's her "home" on the beach. When I remove them by scrolling up, I sense that she's more alone, more isolated, and I think I might prefer to keep this safe haven for her as she explores. Admittedly, this moves it a bit closer to a family snapshot and just a bit further away from a more conceptual photograph; I go back and forth as to which I personally prefer.

its amazing and very different,, incredible idea and well executed.
regards,
ANAND !!

The hands as if to say stop don't go any further. The curiosity and imagination at work, and the flexibility of the "Kid" is a sight to behold. Perhaps the item top left could be removed but not at all critical. A very enjoyable photo.
Holger

I love the little girl's posture & her feeling of wonderment. A child's innocence comes across beautifully. I do think she is a bit too cenetered & find the elements in the upper left distracting

Since it has been an issue, I will have to say that I really didn't notice the upper left corner as a problem. I did notice it after it was mentioned, but when you "look" at the photo, it seems to recede dramatically. The limited depth of field pulls you to the girl and I can't even seem to make myself be distracted by what is in the upper left. I don't know if I would want to crop this enough to eliminate it, as it would lose too much of the curve of the water that is so nice. If one was so inclined, the colors could be muted pretty easily, thus reducing whatever distraction is felt a bit further. I am fine with it as it is, but probably would at least play with minimizing the color intensity. On the other hand, maybe it offers a bit of context that isn't really a bad thing. Sometimes a photo can just be too sterile and thus too predictable.

My first hit was that we had a cute photograph of a little girl being a little kid and as such, it is really wonderfully done. The timing to catch the foam so that she "fits into" its shape rather than her bisecting it above her head is very nice and draws that much more attention to her--and is a bit more elegant than the alternative. I don't know that there could have been a better posture or moment of anticipation to tell this story.

The only downside here might be the sickly green cast that is especially noticeable in the foam. It almost feels like some yellow was added to the cool tones of the overcast to warn it up, turning the more expected cyan/blue to green. The yellow is more noticeable on her back and the top of her legs. A simple curve in PS, using the neutral eyedropper on the green highlights in the water will pull the tones back into something more pleasing and natural--finding the right point will take some testing. Other fine tuning might then help bring the color balance to where it fits the individual taste.

Overall though, it is really a nice photograph.

Simply beautiful!

From a technical point of view: Excellent, from a personal point of view: Makes me wanna go to the beach, put my feet in the water and relax. Great capture!

Great composition and wonderfully expressive subject. The framing of the child, by the water and the distant towels in the upper left corner, is absolutely great. The very natural state of the child is also wonderful. Someone said above, that this photo is balancing on the border between snapshot and artful composition. I agree. That is the balance which, to my mind, at least, makes (or can be a very large contributing factor to) a good street photograph. Nicely done.

Forget the traditional photographic details for a moment. This image captured my attention immediately as a sharp contrast to the behavior of the sea as it wiped out parts of Japan in the form of a giant tsunami wave. This same water that has the ability to kill, suddenly is a gentle toy that nature has given this tiny girl to play with.

Rick, excellent observation...and sobering.

Rick, that is very profound - and sobering, as you said.

This photo is all about the girl and the beach. Look at the sand - wiped clean by the surf - pure, pristine, unmarked by man. The surf - uniform, clean, unobstructed. I assume we can say the same of the little girl - pure, innocent, unaware of man's dark side. The DOF does a great job of emphasizing this sense, but in my opinion the "evidence of man's presence" at the top needs to be cropped out to keep that continuity.

Innocence, childhood, play .... life, that gives me your image.
For me, the soul of the picture is the pose that only children can adopt. This expectant pose, with hands ready to try to catch a piece of sea between his fingers ...
Great use of DOF to emphasize the point. Good image
Warm Regard!
s

I have looked at this marvelous shot several times, but seem always to come back with two aspects of the photo, that I find overdone.
As many have mentioned already, the upper left blur is somewhat disturbing and could be cropped out.
But I also find, contrary to other remarks above, that the DOF is overdoing its work of concentrating our attention on the girl and her gestures.
A much, very much, less short DOF would emerge the girl in what seems to be her real sensation of being very near "deep" waters. The water reaches beyond her further away and deserve to be shown more clearly, as she obviously experienced it.
She is herself sufficiently present in the composition and does not need any photographic technicalities to be fully noticed by anyone looking at the scene.
Just a personal view on a very good shot on a child's discovery of the world around her.

I agree with John A. about the colour cast. I tried playing with it from this .jpeg and it was easily corrected using some of the foam and water as sources of neutral tones. I wonder if Ian considered converting to a B&W? That would take away from the upper left object and the colour cast issues. It is a very engaging photo none the less.
Regards, John

I don't find anything in this photo distracting. There's implied movement and context. Its composition needn't be sanitized. It's a splice of life.

I do note the strong contrast. It's not a delicately-handled photo of a child: the blackness of the girl's hair, the strong color of the water, sand, and skin. In this way, I find it more photographically challenging and deliberate than many photos of kids.

For me, it's still a photo of a child at the beach, though an unusually processed one for the family album. It fits in well with Ian's other kid photos.

I think Ian's kid photos are not his strongest. There are other of Ian's portraits that I find have more character and depth in their overall approach and perspective. The children, in general, feel more typically shot, less individualistically seen.

Wonderful photo! I think the main thing that has been accomplished is the capture of a special moment. Her focus and intensity is real. These things come and go so quickly, its great when you can get it on "film." Everything else is just being nit picky.

No, it's not. It's being a critical viewer, something which should be encouraged on a photo site devoted to learning about making photographs. There are many, many, many great childhood moments. Few of them make good photos. The difference between the wheat and the chaff is in the photographic approach and details. I applaud those who are able and willing to look carefully at a photo and see through a moment to an actual photograph of a moment, which are two very different things. Capturing a moment on film (or digitally) makes for most snapshots. It is usually the approach and detail that turns that moment into a photograph worth spending time with.

very good capture, congratulations

Fred, I really want to understand your point of view, but I have to admit that I don't have a clear sense of your opinion regarding when a great childhood moment makes for a good photo. I don't know what you mean by "the photographic approach and details" as being that which separates the wheat and the chaff (i.e., a photograph worth spending time with versus a snapshot). I'm lost when you distinguish between "see through a moment" versus "an actual photograph of a moment."

What "photographic approach" leads to a good photo, in your opinion (with "good" being defined as a photograph worth spending time with)?

What does this photograph lack such that it fails to resonate with you but is apparently o.k. with viewers with whom it does resonate?

Trust me, I'm asking these questions in an open and honest way -- this is not meant as a disguised challenge or criticism. These questions are all basically the same question -- any one of them would, I hope, give me a better understanding of your point of view. I'm especially interesting in knowing the characteristics of the "photographic approach" that lead to photographs you find worth spending time with.

Stephen, perspective is one aspect that is important to me. Passion is another. Connectedness is another. Individuality is important to me. I usually am drawn to photos that do more than capture something. I am intrigued by photos that transform those moments or transcend those moments (even while recognizing the moments themselves). I guess I consider that most snapshots (many of which I own and have taken and treasure as keepsakes) capture. The photos I consider beyond snapshots have a transformative quality. They create something, involve a connection or story that goes beyond capture. Capture is a word suggesting the taking of something. The flip side of that is a giving to by the photographer. When I sense a photographer has given himself to something, I am moved. Snapshots tend to remind us of actual moments. They represent something else, something that happened. Other photographs are experiences or events themselves, less about referring to a different moment and more about becoming something new.

Steve Murray, at least as I understood him, was praising the original moment, not the photograph. The photograph itself has photographic details: perspective, distance, angles, blur, color, color temperature, light, composition, various elements handled different ways, contrast, sharpness, texture, etc. Steve seemed to me to be dismissing those things and the comments about them as "nit picky" details. I was suggesting that those, and not just the pleasure or cuteness or sweetness of the moment this recalls, are an integral part of the photograph.

Even if this is a simple snail shot for a child enjoying the sea water wave phenomena and even if it is not so technically captured, still there is a lot of originality contained in this image and with very great timing of the little girl movement and reaction to the water wave, this is what I liked in this image and it is of no important to me how simple technically it is.
The color cost is evident and thats of no great deal to correct while the top right side content is also disturbing but again it could also be corrected.
Main while bravo for the photographer to have his image been selected for the POW, and I believe the Elvis are so cleaver with their selection this time, a very simple image technically, yet well deserve been discussed.

Rashed's cropped version loses so much vitality and life and instead feels sterile and sanitized. The completion of the curve of the water at the top of the photo provides much depth that the crop loses. It also provides a very alive sense of shape and such a curve added to the sensuousness of the water, which is now lost. Without the amorphous goings on on the top left, the photo also loses some intrigue and some context and some play off the main subject, the child. For a subject to be a subject, it does not have to stand in clean isolation. Not every element other than the subject is a distraction. Some of those elements provide visual support. The allow the eye to wander and then come back to the subject, which provides a much more interactive experience than simply obviously pointing directly AT the subject.

Stephen, it is precisely the kinds of elements Rashed's crop eliminated that start to create what I am talking about, the transformation of a main subject and a moment into a photo. My disappointment in the photo is that there isn't more photographic energy and re-visualization of (or take-off on) what happened in that moment.

I also wanted to mention that, in addition to the important curve of the water at the top, that curve and the water itself are in a nice tension to the edge of the frame. That creates a dynamic kind of energy which is removed by the crop. I could see that being soothing to some and creating a very different feel to the photo overall, which could be appropriate given that it's of a child. But the strong handling of the subject in terms of contrast and color and her own relationship to the edge of the water suggests to me that the relationship of curve of water and edge of frame in the upper right is more consistent with the overall feel and composition of the photo. Much of this may not have been intentional. Nevertheless it is there and it effects the look and feel of the photo and the experience of the viewer.