My first time here, give me your opinion please

[TuanAnh Nguyen]

Hi all,

I'm Tuan Anh, Vietnamese student in Singapore. I love street and photojournalism. Here are some of the photos I took recently. Please critique.

Alone



At work (School of the arts campus construction site)

[awais400]

nice photos. but black and white also post in colour photos .nice move in right direction.
well done.

[Wirefox]

Tuan Anh

Welcome. The subject in the first image is a little lost. I think this would work with a less fussy background, the tree dominates the frame. This is always a difficult trade off with incidental subjects as there is a tendency for the eye to search the image and the initial impact is lost. Now your second image I do like. Whilst the subject takes a small percentage of the image the background is simple and this gives a nice perception of scale. I would probably go a little further and crop off the concrete floor that the subject is standing on. Your b/w conversions are very crisp by the way

Steve

[TuanAnh Nguyen]

Thx a lot Steve,

My intention for the first photo was to emphasise on the space so that it conveys a sense of loneliness and emptiness much better, however, as you say, the background dominates too much. Thanks for your comment.

For the 2nd photo, my initial intention was too get another worker to be on the upper platform, however it never came true. What do you think about that idea?

[rick55]

Hi, Tuan;

Welcome to CiC. These are two very nice compositions. I think the first might have worked better if not for the motorcycle: maybe try taking that out? I don't know what you use for post-processing, but in Photoshop, you'd use clone stamp. As Steve says, the eye searches, and the impact is lost. Without the motorcycle in the first shot, I think you might just think, "That's a person: wow! what a huge tree."

For the second, my opinion is that a worker on the upper platform would distract, in the same way that the motorcycle distracts. With a second person in the second shot, I think you'd be distracted wondering what the relationship between the two people is. Of course, that might be a great shot, too, because the relationship might be interesting, but it would be a different shot.

Cheers,
Rick

[Shadowman]

I agree with Steve, the tree in the first photo dominates the frame and would look better if more of the tree was visible. The figure only helps in that it can be used as a scale for size referencing. Same problem with second photo, the figure helps convey scale that is all. Other then those two issues, the images show a great pattern.

[Geoff F]

I think the first one may look better in colour. It is the dense blackness of the tree which makes me wonder what I am looking for, then I see that guy with his motorbike as an afterthought. I like the idea of a small figure dwarfed by the tree but it needs better lighting.

As you can't show the entire tree, I wonder if cropping to a 2 x 3 ratio (portrait) would lose some of the conflicting side clutter but still show the tiny man against the height of the tree.

The second one is good, apart from a tiny white dot in the black area. I would clone that away.

That photo, I think, would make a good entry for our themed photo competition 'Work'. We need someone to start this month's entries.