My boy on his way to school, spring 2001

I had loaded the Kodak Tri-X and was looking for something to test the

capabilities when I saw my son sitting on the front porch (waiting for

me to walk him to school). I'm no Sears photographer, so I just asked

him to be patient for a moment and clicked twice. I love my Pentax

SP1000 because it makes me stop and think about each photo. Open the

aperture, focus, click the light meter on, close the aperture down to

where I guess its ok, wind the film ahead and breath carefully while I

press gently down. Thankfully the CLANK of the shutter makes the

subject jump AFTER the shot.

Paul,

I really like this shot. The composition is well done. The tones are very nicely captured. A suggestion...I find that my portraits shots, especially of kids, work better when they don't know that you are taking their picture. The "pose" is more natural. Having said that, I like this picture.

Paul, a beautiful photograph of a beautiful child (by a proud parent, no doubt). You specifically ask if the urban background works. That depends upon what you want out of the photograph. The background will work if you use the environment to comment in a truthful way about the subject. Truthful is the part that differentiates between a picture of a person in an environment and an environmental portrait You say your son is waiting for you to take him to school, so it could be assumed that this is in front of your residence if so, that adds a truthful comment about the environment associated with your son. You could, of course, crop the dark area on the left and the light area on the right and loose the environment and still have a wonderful photograph. There is much to be said for capturing the unguarded moment in photographs of people, but direct eye contact can often tell much about the relationship between the subject and the photographer; as well as drawing the viewer into the photograph. A photograph this will done on all counts will surely become a family treasure to you and your son.

Paul, I apologize, its that way with old people, we confuse things! The urban background was on the previous image I viewed. My comments about your fine photograph still stands in spite of my confusion.