andrew_somerset1

View the large version to make the billboard more legible....

Thanks to photo.net's compression, this won't make much sense unless you view the large version.

The lighting is dead simple. It was dark in the woods (the tree he fell from is at left) and I lit him with a single SB-28 flash, off-camera to the right. This shows in the big lighting flaw, i.e. the harsh shadow cast by his collar.

 

The background is kinda weird -- it's just the sky poking through some leaves.

"The same way we depend on the Met Office for forecast of the weather and plan our clothing and routes accordingly -- depending on rain or sunshine -- so, too, we are forced to think about our use of Mountain View Avenue. Whether things are normal -- which is to say that a truce is in place and appears to be holding -- or whether gun battles are raging and the body count is rising...."

 

- Editorial, Jamaica Observer, July 20 2003

 

"You should be careful when travelling to and from Kingston airport. The Mountain View route should generally be avoided. There have also been incidents (including temporary road blocks) on the alternative Humming Bird Route, specifically on lower South Camp Road. Travel by this route during the day should be trouble-free but take local advice before setting out on journeys after dark...."

 

- UK Foreign Office, Nov. 2003

 

Following the June 19 parochial election, rival factions began a gang war and nightly murders and gun battles terrorized the Mountain View neighborhood. "Not even dogs will venture out at night," one resident told the Jamaica Observer during the worst of the violence, which killed 20 within a month. By October, when this photo was taken, life was returning to normal but there was still a heavy police presence along Mountain View Avenue.

 

"'It is affecting the children badly because all under the bed and on the ground them have to hide. If my husband on the road mi have to call and tell him don't come home because gunshot firing,' said a housewife. 'If it was not my house I would have gone long time, but to go out and pay rent now after being made redundant -- it is not easy.'

 

Similarly, 26 year-old Natalie, who is unemployed, said that she had lost seven pounds within the last two months and was worried about the effect of the violence on her nieces and nephew.

 

'It affects the children a lot because in the nights they can't sleep and in the days they can't go out to play. When them sleep them tremble and wet the bed,' she said. 'All my neighbour son -- he is two years old and every time him hear the gunshots him peepee up himself.'

 

One of her neighbours joined in the conversation: 'I started sending my daughter to summer school but I have to stop. She is going into grade six but her teachers say that her performance is dropping. Dem did kill her aunty a couple years back and from that it affect her,' she said. 'If I could get someone to buy my house, I would sell it and go outa road go pay rent.'"

 

- from "Deadly Mountain View Avenue," Jamaica Observer, July 20 2003

You need the space up top. It gives us the context these kids live in, which tells us about the Roma and their place in eastern Europe. I didn't realize the kid in front was holding a gun until I read your comment, though. Perhaps it's more clear in the print?

Nice picture, good composition. The light is flat, though, and the sky dull. If you'd had better weather, you woulda had a better pic. Altertively, you might have tried underexposing a bit and using a tough of fill flash on the foreground -- tough to get right with a subject like this.

 

In terms of getting the shot under whatever the conditions were, this is good.

You've got the cracked, dried mud, the grounded barge and the lake in the background. So it's pretty clear that this is about low lake levels, drought, whatever.

 

On the downside, you've got a flat sky that dominates too much of the frame. I think the instinct here is good but a slight change of camera angle would have made a better shot.

I think the spin is too much, because I really can't see anything in the frame except this guy and his camera. But it's a neat-lookin' picture.

This is the better of your fire pics because it's focusing on the story. The problem here is: what's the story? Okay, there's a fire; we can see the firefighters and a fire engine in the background. Clearly it must be a pretty big fire based on the additional vehicles and big honking hose, but other than a bunch of guys spraying water, what's going on? They're looking out to the left, but we can't see what's there. A fire, presumably, but what's burning? How big is it?

 

This would be better if shot wide and from an angle that shows the fire as well as the firefighters. News photos are all about context; that's where the story comes from.

 

Hope that's helpful.

Here the hoses make something of an interesting pattern, so the foreground has some interest, but this doesn't work as a news photo.

 

We know from the picture that there is a fire up there and that it seems to be a Mexican restaurant called Miguel's, but you've made that of secondary importance to the hoses. Half the frame is grass and hoses. So what is the story -- the fire at the restaurant or the hoses?

 

Your other fire pic is better.

The biggest problem, to me, is that the water seems to be in sharp focus but his head is not.

 

Also a polarizer might take that glare off the water, but on the other hand the Grand doesn't have a really attractive colour most of the time....

Looks not too interesting -- until you see the eyes looking at the camera. Powerful.

....

A whole folder of cardinals! I like this the best, because his perch is in a field of green so you simplify the normal wandering branches out of the composition. The uniform green field gives nice colour contrast to the red, too.

I don't really see the need for fill flash, especially with those glasses. I love the glasses and I love the pose, which looks almost cocky and somehow inappropriate for a man of the cloth. Funny and offbeat.

I think this is a great document of a craft that will all but disappear -- and be aware that unlike many on photo.net, I don't use the word "documentary" as an insult! I like the way it is composed to clearly show the models and to set him off against them. He seems oddly stiff, but then many people do when photographed.

You should shoot this from a lower camera angle, so you are shooting at your subject's eye level.

I would like this better if you were in close, tight, to be able to show us what he is doing. Or, you could shoot it wider but give us a better view of the finished crafts.

I like this from the standpoint of giving a human dimension to what are normally just called "rebel forces."

Dragonflies 1, Bees 0. Being allergic to bee stings, I'm cheering for the dragonflies.

 

I'd say the subject matter is interesting enough as it is. And I didn't even notice that the dragonfly had landed on a wire until I read your comments -- I was more interested in the dragonfly and its victim.

Sorry, but this has become a cliché. The homeless man is passed, unnoticed, by faceless people in expensive cars or expensive clothes. Again.

This is very good, in my view. It displays a sensitivity towards and intimacy with the subject that is missing from most photography of the homeless. The shot is made by the facial expressions. I would definitely not crop off the cup, it is part of the story.

I really like the off-centre composition, but it would be better if the top of the mast and uppermost sail weren't cut off.

 

Members of the Nottawasaga Steelheaders' Association work to clear a

passage through a log jam on the Boyne River near Alliston, Ontario.

The jam prevented steelhead from reaching spawning areas farther

upstream.