Pigeon Man. C&C Welcome

[fotugraphy]

Hi, going forward on my photography venture I stopped and clicked another shot. Can you please review it and let me know what exactly is missing for it to make it much better?

This man was feeding pigeons and as soon as he finished, suddenly he started coming on the pigeons and i clicked him. (never knew he will act this way). I asked him why he did this.... he told me he wanted to feel all the pigeons around him and he feed them and do this daily.

In this shot I deliberately used slow shutter speed at higher focal length (135mm at 1/30 sec) to get pigeons in motion and very little camera shake too.

Please provide your views and suggestion with composition, frame and processing. With the processing i used high contrast tones.

Thank You

PS : Please click on the image for lightbox screen view (Highly recommended)



Update #1 : more darker vignette as suggested


Update #2 : Darker Vignette to make human standout

[Manfred M]

That is definitly an interesting shot, Raj. Your pigeon man almost gets lost amongst the pigeons, but not quite and they actually end up making a frame for him to stand in.

I think this shot would not work in colour, it is already quite busy, so the simplifying effect of B&W is an important compositional element. You have also thrown out the "rule" that tells you that the foreground should be in focus. Knowing when to break the rules, like you have here, shows why these rules do need to be disregarded under certain circumstances.

The one thing you might want to try is to put a vignette around the image. The pigeons make this a very busy scene and a vignette might pull the viewer's eyes towards the subject a bit more.

[fotugraphy]

That is definitly an interesting shot, Raj. Your pigeon man almost gets lost amongst the pigeons, but not quite and they actually end up making a frame for him to stand in.

I think this shot would not work in colour, it is already quite busy, so the simplifying effect of B&W is an important compositional element. You have also thrown out the "rule" that tells you that the foreground should be in focus. Knowing when to break the rules, like you have here, shows why these rules do need to be disregarded under certain circumstances.

The one thing you might want to try is to put a vignette around the image. The pigeons make this a very busy scene and a vignette might pull the viewer's eyes towards the subject a bit more.

thanks a lot for the detailed review and suggestion. This is exactly my thought process which you described in words I have already added vignette in the image but it is subtle. Do you want me to add more of a hard vignette ?

You have seen in my previous images, i always tried my best to break the rules. Successfully or not? My failures will lead to my knowledge (my personal understanding). It is true that colored version was not working for me, because of the fact i already had a vision when i took the shot and colors were distracting.

[fotugraphy]

That is definitly an interesting shot, Raj. Your pigeon man almost gets lost amongst the pigeons, but not quite and they actually end up making a frame for him to stand in.

I think this shot would not work in colour, it is already quite busy, so the simplifying effect of B&W is an important compositional element. You have also thrown out the "rule" that tells you that the foreground should be in focus. Knowing when to break the rules, like you have here, shows why these rules do need to be disregarded under certain circumstances.

The one thing you might want to try is to put a vignette around the image. The pigeons make this a very busy scene and a vignette might pull the viewer's eyes towards the subject a bit more.

Thanks a lot for your kind detailed suggestion. Here is the shot without the vignette



and here is the one more darker vignette as suggested.

[Manfred M]

Raj - I guess what I was thinking is that while the pigeons do frame the man, they are such a large part of the image, that is it not that hard to get lost. Our eyes are drawn to the brightest areas in the image, and in a perfect world, this would be the pigeon man, but because there are so many bright spots that are created by the flying pigeons, it is both difficult to initially spot the man, and then our eyes wander away to explore the other bright spots in the image.

If there was a vignette or shading that separates the man from the rest of the image by darkening up the other areas, our focus would fall more on the man and less on the birds. Once it was there, it wouldn't wander around looking at the other bright areas in the image.

[vaez]

i agree with manfred

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[fotugraphy]

Raj - I guess what I was thinking is that while the pigeons do frame the man, they are such a large part of the image, that is it not that hard to get lost. Our eyes are drawn to the brightest areas in the image, and in a perfect world, this would be the pigeon man, but because there are so many bright spots that are created by the flying pigeons, it is both difficult to initially spot the man, and then our eyes wander away to explore the other bright spots in the image.

If there was a vignette or shading that separates the man from the rest of the image by darkening up the other areas, our focus would fall more on the man and less on the birds. Once it was there, it wouldn't wander around looking at the other bright areas in the image.

Thanks a lot for your valuable review and suggestion in details. Here is the updated image with more darker vignette in order to make man standout as suggested

[fotugraphy]

Very nice.

Thanks a lot for your kind review and appreciation

[fotugraphy]

i agree with manfred

thanks a lot for your valuable review I have updated the description of the thread with the image with the suggestions