Old Man Cooking

Image taken in the bamboo growing region of China. The old man here

is cooking rice, sealed in bamboo tubes for the restaurant (blurred

in the background)

Why motion blur? It looks more like camera shake to me. I would try to get lower to get more of the old man's expression. Regards.

the image is a bit blurred. I think that makes a nice contrast to the overall quiteness of the scene.

Thank you Minhn & Dorian for your comments.

I'm a learner on PS still, don't think I did a good job on the background blur. Tried to blur the background because otherwise the restaurant would distract from the main subject of the old man.

I can't believe I missed this one in your portfolio. The subject is very nice indeed. You caught him engaged and with the tools of his trade. I don't think, however, the motion blur was necessary to assist the image. To me, the background becomes a bit more distracting because of the blur. The subject is sufficiently dominant here to minimize the impact of the background so I think you would be okay. If you have a concern with the background being too sharp, set your camera for aperture priority and set the aperture at f/4 or f/5 (if it has half-stop increments). That should, in most instances, give adequate background blur. Using PS, I'd suggest you use mild gaussian blur to get the effect you want. These comments aside, I do like the image a lot. Wonderful work.

Very nice document. I agree with most comments on the motion blur, it's not necessary and quite distracting from the main subject IMHO. It desserves a new upload without it and with a sharpenning on the man's face ...

I really like pictures of everyday life. Maybe I would include in the framing all the "stove" and the chair (if you cropped it) but this my personal taste. I found also that the digital blurring of background was not so necessary.

I like your images, most of all those in b&w. Good work!

Thank you very much guys. I wasn't happy with the background treatment at the time. Encouraged by your comments and feed backs, I will work on this a bit more and do a reload.