River Thames, Oxford

Fun on the river. A 6x7 crop again. All critiques welcome.

I'm unfamiliar with your cropping technique/style, but i feel that the shot is really hindered by the sharp crop on the bottom - the people's feet are chopped and the overall weight of the photo is too much on the bottom. I'm also not a fan of the actual rectangle created, i prefer something more normal or closer to square. As to the picture, i think it is actually quite nice - good catch of these people on the street.

Really captures the joy of the subjects. Nice wrk!

I've been coming back to this off and on for several days now trying to figure out how to frame my comment. Overall, I like the composition but I guess what I want is more. When I say more, I mean more detail. I generically see the kids having their fun with the punting, but I don't see something that tells me more about why they are laughing and laid out the way they are. I don't mean that I require some kind of life story thing, I guess I mean I need a context clue of some kind to add more. Its hard to describe completely why its falling a bit flat to me, but I hope you're catching my drift.

Thanks very much for your useful feedback here. I'm only too sorry I overlooked replying before and hope that you will pick this up later on one day.

 

Matt, I recall your commenitng upon a cropping rectangle of mine before. The crop here is to a 6x7 in portrait format. The girls' feet are very close to the bottom of the frame but are not bisected. The girl on the left has the ball of her right foot planted on the bottom edge. Her other foot is inside the frame. You can see the other girl's white trainers. The original neg has more below and I cropped this way, largely to flatten the picture (meaning to move away from the 2:3 ratio) and to eliminate the bloke at the front of the boat. I thought that one pair of legs at the back of the boat was more interesting than one at the top and one at the bottom of the picture and the one at the top gave an impression of the direction of the punt (owing to the feet facing into the picture). As a matter of interest perhaps, I stood here waiting for a punt to follow this line because I liked the ability to include some weeds and stuff at the water's edge. You will see how very smooth and uniform the water has been rendered on the right hand side.

 

Another interesting point from you too Andy. Why are they laughing? Well I imagine being pushed along the river is something to smile about. But nothing to split your sides over. The fact of the matter is that I made them laugh (well the one on the right with the trainers) I can't remember now what it was that I said but it was something that made her roll backwards, which I was very pleased with, because it meant she caused her friend to roll back too.