Happiness

Beautiful colours and great lighting. Congrats.

Superb!

Beautiful scene and light!

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I rather likes the tones. The predominance of the green/yellow tint adds a touch of childhood innocence for me. Each photograph tells a story but it feels like I want to hear this story. One slight criticism, I would have cropped out the blurred tree to the right of the frame to truly focus all attention on the main subjects.

Another example of a photographer being dominated by their camera's format and not cropping for the subject which could loose the blurred tree [and gain on the left] with advantage ... otherwise a great concept and result. The darkness of the tree questions the happiness of the children.

I disagree. I think the blurred tree on the right gives the image depth. It allows the scene to be captured as it should...a scene where the photographer seemed to be peering in without the subjects knowing.

In this image, and much of Rarindra's other work, he has 'captured the atmosphere'. I can almost feel the 40C temperature and 100% relative humidity. This is exceptional and it would be hard to imagine this image having the same impact without it.

Rarindra Prakarsa's many images on his page here are worth visiting. He has a well developed personal style of which this is a fine example. It's not something I would or could do, but I think he does it well. It is a kind of neo-pictorialism in the best sense.

It not just the blurred tree. It's bad framing. The right 1/4th of the image is dead. Yet the left frame nearly cuts of a piece of the boy's butt--it is too close for comfort. The boy leaning against the tree is interesting. The other boys are not quite so. The middle boy is mildly interesting. The last boy is not interesting at all. I dislike the title. Not because the boys aren't happy-looking. But because it is directing me to see the image a certain way. The image should speak for itself.

In all, it is not a bad picture. I mean it is all right. The masks make it more than ordinary. The focusing is good. The blurred background is good. But overall, it is not a great image. And I do think cropping it will improve it.

Thank you
Technically Its a semibacklit photo and yes the blurred tree was intended to make a depth. I like lowkey that visualized in most of my pics.
The position of the subjects, three kids, for me just fine, but I hv admit that its not a unique, extraordinary composition. Just a standard one. My emphasize to this pic is light and mood. Trying to make a dramatic one with lots of shadow and highlight.
Alex: " The image should speak for itself." Totally agree but...directing me also to think that "All images should have no tittle"....And "All paintings should have no tittle"...because all visual art should speak it self according to you. Is it correct?

Alex: I agree with your comment that the right corner could have been removed, though the depth would have suffered. I would have still removed it as it is cosmetically shabby. other then that the picture is nearly perfect.
Rarindra: Great background tones. The expressions are real.

Choose a title that is not leading. Some like "Three Boys with Masks" would have worked a lot better. Trust the viewer's intelligence to determine if the boys are happy or not.

This image, like many of Rarindra's, has the sense of being romanticized lifestyle/editorial in nature. They give a sense of an idealized, almost fairy tale like, existence. The atmospheric presence in the work is almost palpable but feels a bit like we are on a sound stage at Universal Studios at the same time. I found myself looking closely to be sure that there weren't signs of it being so. That isn't a criticism, but more a recognition of a well developed style.

Personally, I think the idea that that dark, extremely OOF tree on the right adds depth is a bit of a stretch. It is, to this image, a bit of a distraction but more because its existence here adds to a much larger vacant and uninteresting space. A great space for copy in a magazine but not very interesting in a photo. Devices like this work when they interact within an image--effectively interact, that is--not just because they exist. I really don't find it to have any purpose here except as a distraction and an odd compositional element.

Otherwise, I think the structure of the 3 boys works well to move the eye around between them. There is definitely a strong sense of a steamy atmosphere in this image.

I don't like these kinds of titles either but what strikes me is how well it goes with the photo. Not because the title says "happiness" and the boys are "happy" but because the title is like a one-word summary of what seems to be approached as an Ideal . . . happiness. I'm in agreement with John A on his assessment. It is a very idealized and stylized look at childhood, simplified into one word in the title and one emotion in the photo. . . happiness. It is effective and accomplished at doing that. I find most idealizations false, so that affects my reaction, which is about me. If the area on the right in the foreground, the ubiquitously mentioned blurred tree, were serving as an opposition to the happiness, perhaps suggesting (not literally, but visually and emotionally) some disturbance or potential disruption to the happiness, or anything more complex, I would probably respond more to this photo. But, again, that's just me. The tree doesn't provide a sense of physical depth, which is already provided by the rest of the composition, the lighting, the haze, and the coloration. And unfortunately it doesn't provide the kind of emotional depth an area of the photo like that has the potential to have. As it stands, I could understand someone seeing the trees in the foreground as a grounding mechanism or an anchor, but to me it seems more like an albatross around the neck of an otherwise much lighter, freer photo.

Can't boys and girls be happy together? The more I look at this picture, the more I think about the relationships and how strong patriarchal societies are.
Aesthetically, I like everything in this picture. Everybody talks about the tree as a bad leading line into a story of 'happiness'. I like the tree which looks magical just as the background of the jungle or the forest. This tree says something good and how enchanting this forest is.

I believe I'd also have cropped the tree on the right side. But the picture is wonderful - it tells a hundred stories (and yes, about happiness, no doubt there!), and the light is simply fantastic! Congratulations on this!

Hapiness is so very fragile..it takes just a moment to achieve it and just another moment that it goes for a visit to somebody else. I think putting three kids having fun in leftmost corner of the picture just emphasizes this...just a random glance through the forest and just by chance catching hapiness in a corner of my sight.

Thank you for any appreciations,comment and critics.
-I d rather comments about tittle. For me, as the picture is a pictorial photo then i prefer put down the tittle 'happiness'. But replace to another tittle "3 kids with masks' even for me degrade our intelectual,.. as clearly seen they are kids/boys with masks.
-'Idealize and stylized. Every persons have their ideal/style.
-Boys and girls sure they can make happiness. Why not?
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6106747
-And again, the tree,...I was trying to put in frame to make depth...not by chance. And I am quite happy with that. ...until now.

<<<Idealize and stylized. Every persons have their ideal/style>>>

Rarindra, "Stylized" is different from "style". From the dictionary . . . Stylized - represented in a non- naturalistic conventional form.

Also, I'm not sure every person has their ideal but I am quite sure that not every photographer photographs in an idealized manner. Again, from the dictionary . . . Idealized - to render something as an ideal in the sense of it being exalted.

I like the texture and slight shadow on the tree behind the standing boy, I also don't find the tree at right to be a big issue, its negligible. Great light and color and feel of 'happiness.' I think this would have been my choice as winner for the recent PN "Children at Play' competition.

A lot of his images look quite enhanced to me and qualify more as digital art than photography. Beautiful to be sure, but digitally manipulated. Too many of the files have the same type "glow", similar rays of sun in them for me to think that's exactly how the subject truly looked. Just a little "too perfect", but however the images are arrived at, they are excellent.

Interesting photo because of at least one reason. What happens when children disappear from the scene. The picture will be mystic because of the mist in background, very soft tones and yellow / green tint, but it will be an ordinary picture like hundreds before. Children are very important for this photo. They introduce some restlessness, they are from another story, but thanks to them the picture is not ordinary.

When parents give their child a name they do not know what he/she is going to be. The name often denotes the desire of the parents what they would like their child to be rather than describe the person. When a photographer creates a photograph, he/she knows what it is and what he/she intends to convey through it. For a photograph to be a bit more than a documentary evidence of an event or an occurrence, it must evoke some emotion or a thought. It is the photographer’s responsibility to lead the naïve viewers to his intended emotion/thought, unless there is an element of mystery in the photograph. The critics do not get directed by the captions to look at the image in a particularly way. There are instances on the PN where the critics blasted a wrong or misleading caption. There are also instances of discussions on PTOW where the photographer left the image untitled. Critics had different perceptions of what the image intended to be and criticised the photographer for having failed to convey ‘that meaning’ effectively.
In this image the two boys with faces covered and not giving any expression of happiness does not reduce the ambiance of fun and happiness. May be their putting on the mask has created the fun.
Regarding the OOF tree being used to create depth, I think it is overdone. May be if the photographer had some object on the left to be included with a blur, it might have looked balanced.