FallRiverPhoto

Tough choices to make on brightness and contrast in this image. Possibly handled as well as could be, but there appears to be more brightness on this side of the house, which may have been toned down a bit in favor of a narrative--how the life of a lobsterman provides a big stack of obstacles to their view of home. I love the deep focus, composition, etc. Since you're asking for critique, I might suggest rotating the image so that the house's corners are straight, leaving the barn to lean even further. But given what I perceive in the narrative element, the house leaning ever so slightly away from the viewer does work well. In all this, I'm thinking of making a photo that is definitely an 8+ into a 9+. So, perhaps I should have led with: Nice shot!

...like she floats suspended beneath the trees. Comments? Suggestions? Other Shakespearean ideas?

Thinking about your question, the choice of red and black in the costuming almost certainly demands blonde hair in visual contrast. Red might have worked, but there's also a character contrast to the blonde pigtails, of course. In the photo, though, the blonde stands out nicely. I would probably have darkened the depths of the alley a bit more, but then the right arm and leg would need a stronger side-light. So, that's probably all the nits I can pick. Stunning effect overall.

Accessories? We don't need no stinkin' accessories. Or do we? I'm open to your critique and/or suggestions.

Her sister/photographer's camera & lens weren't getting the shot she wanted, so I...well, not "stood-in" so much as "laid-in." This is the result. Suggestions?

One of those shots where you either release the shutter or not, capturing the moment rather than planning greater contrast to the background, etc. I love the juxtaposition of the differing strides of two who are presumably walking together. One sees something worth running toward. Is the other less interested, or less attentive? We get to wonder. But only because you released the shutter and worked with the image you captured. Thank you for sharing it!

There are telltale signs of sharpening by software, but they are not too distracting from a great shot. I like what you did with the colors, too. But with what seems like enough light (unless the muted colors are because of an overcast dusk), here are three of the things I have found robbing me of sharpness that might be affecting your work as well. Usually, in my desire for greater fine detail, I use too low an ISO for a handheld shot of some distance. Bumping up to even 800 or above does not seem to lose as much sharpness as the longer exposure does for me. Sometimes, because I do not want to distract someone and thus alter the shot I'm trying to get, I use the longer (longest) reach of my similar zoom (Pentax DA 18-270). This exacerbates the handheld steadiness problem, and seems to have less sharpness than backing off slightly on the zoom, even to 250 or so. Third, and it seems from your example that this might be the case, I am choosing such a wide-open f-stop for a shallow depth of field that my plan of focus is off. In the photo, the shoulder seam of her vest seems more sharply rendered than her face, hair, feather, etc. So, in each area (ISO, length of zoom, and depth of field) it might help to think in terms of a minor compromise between the optimum you seek and the practical limitations of both equipment and operator. (As a final note, your shutter speed seems high enough so that it's not a matter of your subject's movement blurring the image. Perhaps an adjustment there might help as well.) [i just checked photos in your other folders. Does the sharp focus problem seem only to affect those in the RenFaire folder? I'm not seeing it elsewhere. That suggests a fourth issue I occasionally have to remind myself about: is the lens clean?]