Should I have cropped her out, or not? Definitely some folks think I should have, and I certainly thought abut it myself. There were two things that kept me from pulling the trigger:
1. It would have brought the foreground couple to close to the right edge, IMO.
2. I like how the foreground couple are in yellow and blue clothing, syncopating with the chairs, and I find the purple/dusky rose coloring of the flowers in the hanging baskets leads to the lady on the right's top. So it seems of a piece to me.
3. Bonus points, Penny likes the Lady on the Right :-)
Hmnm in cropping her out you would be having to clone out the edge of the umbrella over the other woman and possibly have created some unbalance by having only one entire blue chair and 2 entire yellow chairs. FWIW I really didn't notice LotR that much, certainly didn't affect my vote.
Although the picture would look more balanced with the lady cropped out, I like the added interest in the picture. It makes it more real. Almost like a photobomb!! By the way. That would be a good topic for a future challenge!!!
You should have asked her to either change clothes to match the color scheme of the porch or leave. :-) Just kidding - her shirt matches the flowers in the hanging baskets, so she makes a nice accent piece!
I liked the lady on the right, and the fact she had pink on, she didn't take away from the shot for me, but added a small element of ?mystery? Like this is a yellow blue shot, why is that lady hiding in pink.... where's Waldo
I prefer your current scene. The red shirt-flower convergence adds interest. And I agree with Bear that the crop would create an imbalance on the right.
I'm also tempted to comment about imbalance on the right as an issue in current events, but I would want to risk offending someone. FWIW, I'm also deeply left-handed.
This is probably not okay and I will delete but I think I would have lost her plus a bit on the left. Then cloned out the two triangles of umbrella left on either side. I like them way off to the side, esp given the challenge. The off-balance comp emphasizes the chairs to me.
But I really do think Neil's idea of asking her to move is the best.
Cloning would have been fine. Cropping only the right would be no good. Nam's crop is good, too.
But honestly, I quite like her there.... she is an outsider on several levels, and adds some sort of tension and interest that would be lacking without her.
typing my reply before reading anybody else's thoughts, so I may be duplicating some...
to be honest, I think there are arguments on both sides worth hearing, but the biggest thing is the balance with the umbrellas - cropping her out would have absolutely changed the flow of the picture and would not have had the native draw that this does.
The fact that the two in the foreground are paying attention to each other while clearly *SOMETHING* is happening outside of the image that is taking the attention of the lady in pink is a positive in the sense of "these two are in their own little world, in an idyllic looking setting, having ice cream on a lovely summer evening".
tl;dr: I think it was right to leave her in as an anchor, and because of the umbrella parallels.
I like the image more with her in it. I'm also reminded that this was one of the images I meant to bump up a spot in my voting and forgot. Ooops. Guess it didn't matter.
