anirbanbanerjee

I like your crop. I like to work with either 3:2 or square aspect ratios, so this one could be better in square format. And I need to tone down the saturation a bit, too, on some of my pictures.

Wow, Rajat, that's the best compliment I ever got for a photograph. Thank you very much!

Rajat,

You have nailed each and every item in the picture perfectly! On the right was a smoking damsel, perhaps that is what the gentleman on the right is in awe of! I cropped the right part out to put more visual stress on the lady on the left. I vaguely remembered one of Matthew Arnold's Marguerite poems from school at that time, and then I discovered the poem again:

Yes! In the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.

A great moment to capture, even if it is set up or rehearsed!

Thanks guys. Rajat, yes, here nobody likes to be in a queue :-)

Fred, thanks for your comments. I agree with your observation: I am mostly eager to capture 'the moment', but this scene has nothing unique to tell us; this image tells the story of a millenia-old religious ritual and the sense of order undoubtedly stems from that. The boatman in the background is not part of the ritual and is something like a counterpoint.

Rajat, that's a philosophical argument. I don't agree that any photographer should empathize with the subject, especially photos of stark poverty and pain. Ideally, the photographer should be unaffected to all emotions, and invisible so as to freeze things 'just as they are'. I am sure you and many others would differ. In fact, what spoils this photo is that the boy's eyes met the camera in the 1/3rd of a second I had to compose.

From my week roaming around the riverbanks of the holy city of Benares

(Varanasi). Thanks for C&C.

Lex: thanks for the comments, I agree with all of your suggestions. I could clone out the blurred arm on the left side, but I decided not to in 'true candid photography style'.

Their moms were singing in this Independence (India) Day cultural

program. They were just plain bored and their pranks were plentiful.

Lalit: Can you tell me how to 'dewarm' the picture? The sky is pretty much as I recall from the scene, probably a little warmer. Should I tweak the water and the trees? What about the leaves at the top?

Your feedback will be tremendously helpful!

Thanks.

Alexander: not much, only Color Efex Pro. Then I blended the water from another  image processed from RAW. Then adjusted tones in the sky.

Brilliant composition. Would be interesting to see this in a vertical 3:2 aspect ratio.