Spectators

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I took this series of photos at a fair this summer. Your comments and suggestions appreciated. Daniel

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[pschlute]

I like the concept a lot. These are not working for me though. I think you need to get closer to the spectators with a wider lens so they dominate the picture and the cars are the background.

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Pester. Interesting View. I see it diferently. The large view of the event is what dominates the spectators atenntion. Almost as if they were wactchung a screen in a theater. A close up of the spectators I think would produce a different narative. I could see it working as well. Thank you for your comment.

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Peter.Your suggestion for the spectators to dominate the picture would make the spectators clearly the subject of the photo. Maybe thats why its not working for you. It does have two distinct subjects.

[Manfred M]

Daniel - my impression is quite similar to Peter's. I agree with him that the concept is a good one, but the execution is not working as well as you might like.

You are fighting the human visual system here. We are keyed to noticing bright areas first so that's where they eyes go. In the case of the first and third image, that's where the viewer's eyes go right over the spectator's heads. It does look rather as if the spectators are watching a moving of the race rather than being there. It's more than exposure; the colour temperature of the light on the spectators is far more yellow than the light on the racetrack. Trying to even out the exposure and the colour temperatures would make the whole event look more the way you had intended, I suspect.

[DanK]

I agree with Peter: an interesting concept, but it doesn't work for me as presented.

Having two distinct subjects is hard to pull off. The eye has to go somewhere. So one question is where you want the viewer to look. In #2 and #3, you have more than two subjects; you have a lot of detail at the top that is irrelevant to both of the intended subjects. You could simply remove it. For example:





In the B&W, I also boosted the contrast, which was very low. In the color shot, I made two other changes as well. First, consistent with one of Manfred's comments, I cooled the color temperature in the spectators by quite a bit. Second, I darkened the midtones a little in the top section.

This last change was because I found the dramatic difference between the top and bottom halves in #1 and #3 so extreme that it made the image looked faked--it looked like you made a composite from two very different photos without matching their characteristics. I think toning down the contrast between the two sections might help.

[Manfred M]

so extreme that it made the image looked faked--it looked like you made a composite from two very different photos without matching their characteristics.

You wrote what I thought Dan. All four images have properties about them that would be consistent with photo-composites including the foreground and background that look like they may have been shot at different focal lengths.

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Thank you, Manfred and Dan, for your insights, analysis, and recommendations. Your adjustments made a huge improvement. Daniel

[William W]

Conforming to the Concept and the Tittle "Spectators", I think that Image #3 has the most potential.

As already mentioned, having two (equally dominate) Subjects is difficult to pull off, especially if one is OoF.

There is an added complication in so far as the WHOLE Middleground (The Fence) is often in a little soft focus and it acts as a definitive separator of the two dominate Subjects, one being in sharp focus and the other OoF or with Motion Blur.

I think you have to make "The Spectators" definitive as the Main Subject and include in that main Subject the middle ground being "The Fence".

Additionally, the secondary Subject (The Car(s)) need to be drastically reduced in their importance: this can be done many ways and I think Dan's idea of cropping to reduce the "irrelevant background" can be applied to reduce the importance of the Secondary Subject.

Image #3 has the following attributes:

> Crisply defined Spectators (Main Subject) addressing the Secondary Subject directly - (goes to Internal Subject Connectivity, Internal Rapport)

> Non messy background containing only one Secondary Subject - (goes to a clearly defined logic for the Viewer's brain to easily see a linkage - "I am looking at them, they're looking at that..."

> The combination of OoF and Motion Blur of Secondary Subject - (possible to utilize these to create a bit of initial mystry in the story-line ... Thinking "Oh what is it? Oh yea it's a car on a track."

> The crisply focused Fence makes it (i.e. the middle ground) more owned by the Foreground (goes to making the Final Image stronger by being simpler in two parts Foreground and Background, the main theme being the linkage and interaction between the two).

I think all these factors can be leveraged to make a better Final Image, primarily by judicious (and extreme cropping): in addition the panorama Aspect Ratio adds to the sense of speed, motion, action and drama.

sample -



WW

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Bill, thank you for your analysis and excellent suggestions.
I intended to have the viewer see what the spectators were watching. In a way making the viewer a spectator of the scene as well. That is why I cropped the secondary subject to resemble a screen. That was my thinking. I may have gone out too far on a limb with this one.
I used one of the spectator photos on a website I'm working on. The program automatically cropped the photo as shown for the narrow space. . Kind regards, Daniel

[pschlute]

I think the website program wins !!

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I think the website program wins !!

Funny but true.