What is going on there ? (Chrome)

[AntonioCorreia]

When I captured this photograph in Guatemala, I was intrigued by the striking expression of this man. I noticed the pronounced lines of his face and the worn cap which, to me, tell stories of a life full of hard experiences. When framing the scene, I sought to keep the focus on him, valuing the shallow depth of field that accentuates his presence in the foreground.

I also noticed that the man was indeed observing something happening in the distance, although he seemed barely able to perceive what it was, possibly due to a hypothetical lack of vision.
This contrast between the sharpness of his face and the blurred background, with indistinct colours and shapes, gives the image an introspective character, laden with mystery.
I am left thinking about the story that lies behind that attentive gaze, a silent narrative that invites reflection on human experience and fragility.

[DanK]

I like this a lot. My one suggestion is to burn down the background, and consider desaturating it a bit. The bright colors distract from the face.

Here is a very quick, crude edit where I just burned the background with a brush. Not very good, but you can see that the face grabs the eye more.

[AntonioCorreia]

Thank you, Dan, and thank you, Bill.
Bill replied on the other thread where I had posted the same thing, but via Safari. I’ve already asked the administrator to kindly delete the other thread to avoid duplicating topics.

You wouldn’t believe how busy the background was... it was extremely busy. I already has reduced saturation and luminance. Reducing them further, the outline of the subject would become too noticeable, so I opted for the proposed solution.
I can’t even recall whether I did this in Lightroom or Photoshop—I cloned some areas, altering their colour to lessen the impact of such a colourful background.

Dan's proposal is also very soft and quite close to mine.

Bill, is the stain on the jumper really going to be significant?
Why must we always perfect everything down to the tiniest detail?
I ask myself this: is that really a good approach?
I'm weighing up whether to refine everything or to leave what we might consider imperfections—especially if these contribute to the overall character of the image what here, is not happening, I know.
-
This photo was taken in Guatemala during November celebrations, when the atmosphere was particularly colourful, festive and... noisy !
The delight of photographing with a 135mm in full frame.

- And now ? Better ?

[billtils]

Bill, is the stain on the jumper really going to be significant?
Why must we always perfect everything down to the tiniest detail?
I ask myself this: is that really a good approach?

[/CENTER]

A very good question Antonio. Those of us who are members of camera clubs are used to judges spotting and commenting on every little detail that is less than they consider perfect and marking the image down accordingly. My own view on this image is the same as yours but if we regard thins like this as opportunities for improvement and not errors then perhaps it's not too bad an approach.


Bill

[Geoff F]

Looks good to me, although I would prefer a slightly tighter crop from the right side to remove some background distraction.

[AntonioCorreia]

Please Bill, do not take my text as aggression or bad manners—perhaps I’ve been a little too direct, I don’t know. Writing texts in a language that isn’t our native tongue - and therefore not mastering it completely - certainly has its challenges.

Indeed, if we look closely, I believe that lately we’ve been victims - perhaps “victims” is too strong a word - of a campaign (another exaggeration) that drives us towards the perfect image: immaculate, without the slightest flaw, with razor-sharp clarity and so on: the unattainable ultimate purity.
Could this be a deliberate strategy to overwhelm us with ever more pixels, more expensive lenses, and automatic eye focusing, when in the end our images are nothing more than posts on forums, Facebook, or Instagram, and are rarely printed ? Perhaps, perhaps...
Buy, buy, buy…
Obviously, I too am a victim of this!

Here, the people I associate with immediately nitpick the smallest details, losing sight of the essential quality of an image - that which conveys human strength, a message, and pleasure for the viewer.

Cheers !

[escape]

[billtils]

Antonio

First of all I most certainly do NOT take what you say as bad manners. Quite the opposite - you maintain an interesting and valuable dialogue in what is not your native language so Bravo!

Photography is essentially an art form, but it is actively developing its own norms some of which are not to be found in the traditional world of the arts where there is perhaps more tolerance of individual style. However we cannot be photographers without the required gear - camera, lenses, processing software - and that adds an extra dimension where the capability to take more realistic images and, at the other end of the spectrum, to develop more interesting developments of the captured scene becomes more and more important (whether or not it should be like that ...).