Hanging out after school.

Young children hang around outside their racially segregated school

between lessons in Michalovce.

Slovakia is set to join the EU in May 2004.

Any comments etc welcome.

A truly superb image. I like the way each child has his own personality displayed in the photo. The composition also seems great for the subject.

very sweet, especially how they are all crunched together. The tone is very nice. Too bad the boy's hand/face in the center is a little blurry

nice one gareth. the kids are so natural and happy,well taken

Thanks for all the kind comments.

Jonathan, I don't think I've ever had a 7/7 rating before, I'm glad you liked this picture so much.

Amelia, the print is pin sharp, the boy in the middle's face is just a little soft from movement and his hand is indeed well blured. I'm always keen to get a little movement when I use my 28 or 24mm and I felt at 50mm the blur was a real bonus! It is a pity though that the duotone I used to replicate the selenium effect on the original print makes compression very messy for some reason.

Hi David, yeah the kids did seem happy, I guess they don't get their picture taken too often, sadly though unless things change in Slovakia soon their future looks rather uncertain to say the least.