Friends & Reflections: Comments Welcome

[Disles1]

Hi, I took this photo in Italy in 2007 with my now-gone Canon S3IS (6 megapixels) using the zoom to get close. I (think) I was sitting at a table and our waiter - in white - met a friend. I was looking for interesting shots while having lunch and unknowingly caught the waiter's reflection in his friend's glasses.

I would appreciate any comments on how to improve this type of image.



Thanks, Ken.

[Geoff F]

Reflections in glasses, of various forms, can be a nightmare, Ken. But when you get an interesting effect, like this shot, it is often better to leave it as part of the image.

My main problem here is that the back of the man's head is dominating this scene. So I would try a slight crop from the bottom and left side to make the intended subject appear more important.

ps. With quick shots of crowds or casual shots of relaxed people you often don't get any real thinking time, so your only option is to shoot slightly wide then crop to find the most interesting final scene.

[IzzieK]

I totally and completely agree with Geoff here.

[Disles1]

Thank you Geoff and Isabel, I hadn't thought of the man's head dominating. It's great to have different eyes looking at an image to learn how to improve.

[Manfred M]

More so than the man's head; our eyes tend to be drawn to light colours, and the white shirt is a huge white, bright mass that pulls our eyes away from the reflection in the glasses. This means our eyes will go to the bottom left of the image and will totally miss the subtlety of the reflection.

[Shadowman]

I read that when viewing photos of people, the viewer always searches for the eyes first, so perhaps once we get to the glasses we will follow the reflection before we start looking elsewhere.

[bnnrcn]

I agree with Geoff.