At the fountain

[Manfred M]

This young boy seemed to be absolutely fascinated by the fountain in front of City Hall in Tartu, Estonia. He stood there for several minutes just starting at the statue and the spraying water before he wandered back to his mother, who a chatting with a friend on the camera left side.

[Shadowman]

Nice capture.

[KimC]

What a great find Manfred. So many things in the scene to get straight and precise and they are all perfect, as always. Are you looking for thoughts on the scene?

[Manfred M]

Are you looking for thoughts on the scene?

Sure - I'm always looking for feedback and new ideas.

[KimC]

This is such a sweet scene, and it's easy to come up with thoughts in hindsight as we all know. When I look at scenes I like such as this, I'm now asking myself to think about them on a deeper level (which has been a challenge for me as I've had a hard time expressing what it is I see, and what I like/would change)... so here are my thoughts:

I find the little boy gets somewhat lost by the beautiful and bright buildings going across the image, and the fountain which is substantial in size. I'm wondering if you were somewhere behind the boy (not directly as you wouldn't want the fountain directly in front of him (and of course I have no idea what was on image far right) --- if the boy could have been positioned so he was the primary subject, so you could tell what he was looking at, with the beauty of the buildings (thinking kind of triangular - buildings/boy/fountain... to show the grandeur of this little boy in this magnificent city in awe?

Sure - I'm always looking for feedback and new ideas.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the ideas, Kim.

When doing children shots, especially in developed countries, I am fairly conservative in how I approach them. There are just too many people out there who view anyone who points a camera at a child with a great deal of suspicion, so I will usually only include them as part of a wider scene, like in this shot.

To get a shot from behind would have had me standing approximately where this display was:



This is where the child's mother and friend were standing and chatting; I guess I could have tried that, but I would have been blocking her line of site to the boy. The area behind the fountain from that angle was very brightly lit up and much less attractive than the city hall building.


The child was clearly fascinated by the figures kissing under the umbrella in the middle of the fountain; so I wanted to show that. I tried a couple points of view, but this one came out the strongest. The child and fountain were in heavy shadow and the city hall building were in harsh morning light, so lots of dodging and burning went into this image.

The city hall square is a very high traffic area, so getting a people free shot was challenging.

[mugge]

Manfred, that is one beautiful capture of a very challenging scene.
Cheers Ole

[KimC]

Completely understand, I had no idea about the surroundings... and it's so much easier to comment after the fact. It is a beautiful scene... and it obviously tells a story which caused me to want to think deeper about it :-)

Thanks for the ideas, Kim.

When doing children shots, especially in developed countries, I am fairly conservative in how I approach them. There are just too many people out there who view anyone who points a camera at a child with a great deal of suspicion, so I will usually only include them as part of a wider scene, like in this shot.

To get a shot from behind would have had me standing approximately where this display was:



This is where the child's mother and friend were standing and chatting; I guess I could have tried that, but I would have been blocking her line of site to the boy. The area behind the fountain from that angle was very brightly lit up and much less attractive than the city hall building.


The child was clearly fascinated by the figures kissing under the umbrella in the middle of the fountain; so I wanted to show that. I tried a couple points of view, but this one came out the strongest. The child and fountain were in heavy shadow and the city hall building were in harsh morning light, so lots of dodging and burning went into this image.

The city hall square is a very high traffic area, so getting a people free shot was challenging.