Children of Malawi

[Neilmac50]

I had a look back at my images from my year in Malawi in 2011 and re-edited some of them using Nik SilverEfex Pro.

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[pnodrog]

Some lovely shots. Must have been a great experience being there for a year.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[rpcrowe]

I love these shots. You have certainly been able to show these children in their environment. There are times in which a documentary image benefits from the subject looking directly at the photographer and many of these shots certainly illustrate that technique. I feel like I am right there with the kids...

I am viewing these images on my small Chromebook. I am anxious to see them on my larger desktop monitor.

IMO, these images would, if blown up to large prints make a very nice gallery exhibit...

I could perhaps suggest two very minor changes...

#4... I would crop a bit closer at image left to have the girl facing me be the first one in the line...

#6... I might clone out the partial, OOF, child in the image upper left...

There are some photographers who are adverse to manipulating an image like this but, I feel that the photographer has manipulated the image by just selecting the shot and cropping in-camera, I don;t have any qualms about manipulating an image unless it drastically changes the image content...

[Rita]

What a great set of images. I really like the range of emotions that you have captured.

[lovelife65]

These are all outstanding!

[Manfred M]

Excellent series. These are well taken and well processed images.

While these images work well in B&W, I find that the colourful clothing that is worn in a lot of sub-Saharan Africa is lost in the conversion.

One thing that a lot of people seem to do is to stand one's "normal" shooting position and that tends to mean one is shooting down from above. So far as I can tell, this is what you have done in all of the shots, save for the last one. I find that shots of children are much stronger when one gets down to their level and shoots at their eye level. I find this much more difficult that I used to, but still try to get down lower for these types of shots.

[rpcrowe]

I agree that a lower camera position is better when shooting kids and dogs. Getting down to their eye level works wonders.

However, my old bones, joints and muscles complain when I stoop and if I kneel down, I might need help to get up.

Two solutions (actually three)

1. Shoot with a camera that has a articulating angle LCD. However I have problems composing using the LCD screen in bright sun...

2. Use a right angle finder and shoot looking down. It takes a bit of practice. However I used a twin lens reflex camera for years and it is an easy skill to learn. The right angle finder helps out in many other instances like macro photography and if you purchase a third party finder, the finder can be quite inexpensive.

3. Not as good a technique but, shooting from a longer distance with a longer focal length lens minimizes the differences in height between subject and camera height.

[mugge]

Beautiful series.
Cheers Ole