Red, White and Young Blue Eyes

The American flag has seen many manifestations, even among

Americans as they sewed stars and stripes to it to adjust to the varying

number of states. Clothing designers have done them one better,as this

recent bandanna design shows. Found worn by a kid with amazing blue

eyes recently, that match the blue in the flag pretty closely. Your

ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly

or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment;

please share your superior photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

while the composition (tight on the face) is really pleasant and interesting, I find the artifacts a bit distracting. maybe - imho - it would be worth try a b/w conversion. This image has many different interpretation levels, and could be easily one of your best (certainly a keeper), thank you, Giuseppe

I had a horrible time keeping focus with slow shutter speeds even though Vibration Reduction was enabled, so there were many failures in a series of 20 photos.

 

I did get only about four of this boy and a friend, and the one with the friend may be the keeper, though the friend's slightly out of focus (but helped by sharpening and not being the central subject).

 

Yes, artifact are a difficulty, and so is composition, as this is a rare Crosley crop, which is why it looks a little degraded. I cropped in raw, rotated and did all the necessary work BEFORE converting to .PSD (Photoshop) file, then reworking it as a JPEG, for additional work.

 

And it was a narrow depth of field, with his eyes as focus, so his scarf is a little out of focus.

 

I have about two others, and one or two of them are keepers. This I thought was the only 'keeper' in the bunch, but I think now I have much better.

 

Imagine my eyes when I saw this youth with this bandanna (they almost popped outtta my head . . . when do you have such thing handed to you on a plate, but he kept evading me, so it was 'cat and mouse'?)

 

Finally, after I got just one decent one, I stopped him and a friend (actually his friend) to show it to his friend, and the friend called him over and they admired it.

 

Then he came over and stayed a very very little time, but moved around a lot - in very dim light, making focus problems and movement artifacts a problem, with low depth of field, and high ISO. This and three others (maybe) were not easy shots at all, with failing light and subject movement, but they were worth it, of course.

 

There are all sorts of social/political comment to be made, but first I'd like to find one that has better composition -- this was 'make do with what you have'.

 

Sometimes a strong part of a photo will overcome one's other objections, and this is one of those -- and here the objection was technical in nature. I would have loved to see this kid in full daylight with low ISO, and presumable then I'd really have made a lifetime best (no cropping except as I framed and more leisurely framing, with perhaps the bandanna pulled up tight to the eyes and the hood of the sweatshirt down low to the eyes -- with eyes in a slit -- that's the photo I hoped for but didn't get.

 

And this subject wasn't taking instructions, regrettably.

 

John (Crosley)