light

Great pose -- the little conductor guides the class along.

Wonderful lighting. A little more seperation between the two children would have been better, and maybe if the seated child was looking at the other? Just my opinion. Good, interesting photo, was it carefully staged with lighting, or well captured natural light?

i agree. more separation would have been stronger. and i wonder what it would have been like with girl looking at him. would it have been humorous?? ("what ARE you doing?????"). no this was not staged. i was actually shooting a girl working at a nearby table when his boy crossed my view. when i looked up to curse his rudeness, he literally started playing with the beam of light shining down from the upper windows. i quickly squeezed off about three shots. this was the strongest of them. thanks for the input.

 

andre

You were there at the right moment! Wonderful

composition, hard to believe it was a snapshot.

The girl not looking at him actually works for

me. He plays the great conductor, and she just

ignores him. That's really funny.

First I thought that the boy was catching a ball. Closer look revealed that the "ball"

is actually a clock or some other round object on the wall. After noticing that it came

somewhat distracting and I would have probably cropped the photo from the top. This would

have also given the boy bit more attention and would probably quide the viewers eye more

from boy to girl than from boy to "ball". It would have probably broken also the

"center weighted" composition of the photo. Generally a very nice light! What does

the light area under the boys right hand come from? It is bit distracting too.

Don't crop! The boy's gesture needs that space.

Another vote for cropping. The boy does need space just not that much. I would crop at the top and on the right. Some dodging on the left might help, TriX is very forgiving for dodging. Have you considered printing split contrast? The boy got good contrast grade, but the rest of the image may be bumped up a notch. Some sepia toning might be beneficial.

 

Great image by the way.

cropping below the clock would still leave enough space, i think, but you'd lose some patches of light that show the high source and intense slanting-afternoon-sun feeling. maybe the trade-off would be worth it, but i love it as is. what a moment!

Great shot. Wouldn't change cropping. This shot tells a great story.

 

A young boy's natural sense of adventure takes over during the middle of an exam. The reason the girl isn't looking is that she's still paying attention to what she SHOULD be doing. This young boy, however, has a better sense of reality, and decides to take charge with what HE wants to do.

 

Consider it along the lines of the famous scene from Disney's Fantasia. Mickey begins commanding the brooms, just as this boy is about to command his own mischief.

 

I can hear the boy saying "Welcome... to MY world." Great story. Not just a picture.

Great picture. You have a couple of little jewels in your portfolio. Some are funny, some are lovely.

This one is the strongest. It works at many levels. I would not crop it.

Faaaantastic Lighting! Well captured moment. The lighting--really completes the shot. Is that a light on the lower right or...a reflection of light? Looks to me like he is embracing or commanding or orchestrating the light... Cool shot. So many possible viewer interpretations

I found this picture via a link in this week's POW. This is a beautiful photograph, and there is no need for cropping. IMO, cropping would weaken the composition since the source of light plays a vital role in the story the picture tells. I also love the fact that the little girl is NOT looking at our "conductor", but rather is ignoring the undisciplined shenanigans of a "boy" bringing to mind the "boys" vs. "girls" subtext that is so very familiar in elementary schools the world over. Even the complaint that there is little separation between the boy and the girl does little to diminish my enjoyment of the photo since this photo has a "depth" (as opposed to depth of field) that nicely counteracts what would usually be a compositional problem. Excellent photo!

Simply beuatiful. A true moment of genius, captured forever. Your work is stunning.

beautiful.

Beautiful light...I am astounded at the innocense of this moment. Great work!!!

I like the contrast this image offers and how it interacts with the gesture of the child.

 

I understand the comment made about the glare off the desk. I also see a light band across the top of the frame that resembles uneven development. I have had this same problem for a while. Is that what it is, or is that also glare?

Firstly, congratulations to the elves on what is a fantatastic choice for POW. Secondly, congratulations to Andre on capturing a scene so beautifully. This is exquisite timing and captures the magic of this young conductor at work.

cheers, Charles.

The child looks like he is conducting an invisible orchestra, which is absolutely charming. However, I really don't like the flare in the bottom right. It's a bit bright and too close to the subject. The banding across the top I like very much (whatever its cause). It suggests that the child is looking at brightly lit windows, and adds a great deal to the airiness of the photo.

 

For the same reason, I would definitely not crop anything off the top. The charm of the photo is its optimism -- closer borders would crush it.

Great light and timing Andre,and a humorous shot.I think it's just fine as is.Too many people like to crop images to death around here.Congratulations on a good capture!

While I really really like this photo, I couldnt disagree more about the glare below the boys right arm. It just looks like a poor darkroom effort to me. Each to their own I suppose, I just think it spoils an otherwise awesome shot.

I agree with Toni... "Don't crop! The boy's gesture needs that space". The field of focus puts enough distance between the boy and the girl. I don't know how you feel about photoshop but it will fix the glare problem... Great Shot!

A somewhat interesting example of Tri-X at work. Your subject's focus seems fairly close--hard to tell exactly with that lighting--and the little girl looks okay a bit soft as she is. The rest of the scene more less serves to provide context. We can imagine the school room (I assume that's what it was) more easily than the (now predictably overwrought) allusion by the Photonet staff to "mysticism" due to a glare effect. (It's beginning to sound corny around here.)

 

I agree with Tris on this one. To me the flare (including the halation effect along the top and right-hand sides of the frame - it's in some of the other shots in the portfolio too) has rendered an interesting idea into a reject, "better luck next time" shot. Somebody else said the little girl's figure interfered with the little boy's - again true. She unbalances the composition ever so slightly. There is also something anomalous about the light illuminating the underside of the little boy's head: more flare?

There doesn't seem to be anything mystical about an outright flaw in the neg, as well-intentioned and pregnant with potential (sadly, not quite realised) as the picture is otherwise. I'm not sure whether there is enough discernment between intent and realisation in these pages. The former can be magnificent, the latter less so.

One thing that is right is the space allowed above the boy's figure. What is it with all these cropping suggestions? Can't you scissor people tell the guy's presenting his picture as a "full frame or nothing" shot? He doesn't want or need to hear about the latest in amputation techniques.

The overall effect comes over as "patchy" or "blotchy", ruined by the very light that may have made this good idea into a great shot. And perhaps the camera could have been a little further to the left - a couple of inches would have been all it needed to separate out the two figures slightly. If only...

First, Congrats on a cool pic! From the thumbnail I was expecting to see a very dull muddy picture. I was sure in for a shock--that lighting is surreal! I love these type of accidents or what i think of as almost circumstantial photos.

 

I'd also like to see a little more left/right seperaton of the boy and the girl. That obnoxious glare on the right would--I believe--strengthen the image with its departure. And Ed had an interesting comment about trying to bump up the contrast of the background--that would defiantely be worth experimenting with.

 

This is the frist time I have dared to comment on a POW for fear of the shark infested waters--but I would like to throw out the question--should we as photographers return and "work" this type of shot? The fortuitous pictures I have in this vein--though I fear none this good--seem better to me than the pictures I have intentiaonally "worked." However a little thought and work has definately improved an image or two of mine. Could we be getting significantly better images if we were to combine the elements of our surprise shots and a little hard work? Any thoughts? Apologies if this is not the correct place to raise this question. I do not mean to detract from the POW in any way. Just thought maybe I could start some dialogue early on to keep everybody from insulting each other right off the bat! Once again congrats on a shot I wish I'd taken!

I agree 100 % with T. Dummett. Nothing I would add to it... except maybe that this means I also somehow agree with Tris, which hopefully makes it up for the bad anger he caused to me last week...

 

To the photographer, I would just ask this: what happened actually to this table at the bottom, to this wall at the back...? Was this appearently " poor lab technique " intended ? If it was, I would be very interested in reading an explanation about it... As for now, I am certainly convinced that it still is a good shot -the story beats the details here -, but I am only half convinced if anyone tells me it couldn't be better... So, i'm waiting to read more...

 

Last little note, for the sake of bringing a new issue in this discussion... There is another shot in this folder, which I remembered rating higher than this one. I just checked, and it is called " Illumination ". It shows a little girl in a very similar setting and under the same light... I might agree that the little boy in this POW has quite a dramatic arm position, but then... if we look at the fantastic expression on this little girl's face (in " Illumination "), I wonder really why this wasn't the POW... I find, that this other shot has even a more interesting story than the present image... look at how involved she is in what she's doing... As for the composition, it's certainly less spectacular, more expected, than the POW, but IMO more perfect as well. The light, I would say, is better too... And the print quality as well...

 

So... Which one do we pick ? The lttle girl's face ? Or the little boy's arms ? Which of these 2 pictures is actually the best ? Open for discussion...