This is all we can think about this week. A shoot out on Toronto's busiest intersection on Boxing Day, killed a 15 year old girl, and injured 6 others. I live a block away from the scene. I had tears in my eyes taking this shot, it really seemed surreal.
There has been a dramatic increase in gun violence this year, but it has been easy to turn a blind eye to when it is all in a far away suburb , involving gang bangers.
But this?? Its all too much.
Statistics
Place: 87 out of 173 Avg (all users): 5.2270 Avg (commenters): 5.8800 Avg (participants): 4.9259 Avg (non-participants): 5.3114 Views since voting: 1830 Views during voting: 522 Votes: 370 Comments: 28 Favorites: 0
I think you had a good idea here. A few of my thoughts on improvement:
1) I don't mind square crops, but I'm not sure it works here. I think we want to see more in some direction, I'm just not sure which.
2) The upper left is blown. This is a tough exposure because of the backlighting from the store. Potentially even worse than the upper left is the upper right where the highlights look pretty unattractive. (For some reason they look like shoes on display to me...) It might not have been possible to do better; you could have underexposed some more and hoped to bring the people out in levels by adjusting midtones in Photoshop.
3) There's motion blur (I think) rather than DOF blur. You were on 1/4 second and I bet it was because of that. Pretty good actually for that speed. If this is, in fact, DOF, I would have made the shrine in focus because it is just as important to the picture as the people. personally I also use the rule of thumb that if something has writing on it I make it either very sharp or totally OOF. Semi-focused writing looks bad.
I gave you a 5 because of the emotional content of the picture rather than the technical merits. Keep going Rae-Ann, I know you'll get there.
I voted you a 10... based solely on the message. Technically it wasn't the best work, but the message was so strong I couldn't resist the 10 button. Perhaps I was a little tired of Cityscapes also when I came across your image.
If you had the focus and other technicals, I'd say you would have come very close to a ribbon with this image. Just my 2 cents and why I gave you one of 8 10's.
Challenge
- Relevant to the Challenge? Yes
- Is subject unique (vs. unoriginal or rehashed)? Yes
Compostion
- Good or Bad? How can it be fixed? The composition is good, however, the lighting from the store creates issues.
- Good focus? No. With 1/4 sec exposure you have motion blur. Maybe try a fill flash.
Aesthetics/Artistic Appeal:
- Colors and Contrast. The colors are muted, I'm not sure that I like that.
- What is my reaction or feelings? The feel of the image made me want to avoid it. Maybe because I am a man and don't want to deal with emotional topics? Who knows. I am sure that cropping the store windows out would NOT give the image the same feeling of sadness, but the windows are also on of the weakest areas of the image.
Very touching. Emotional impact is strong and you captured enough detail to let the viewers know what the image is about, though the addition of the name in the title gives it a more personal touch. Thankyou for sharing, and I hope you will find your way clear of this unfortunate incident. Technically, I think it was a little too soft and the highlights were really blown from the background store.
So sad and such an unfortunate and horrible thing to have happen. I know this story well and you've capture this memorial nicely! Great journalism shot too!
Sadly, this has become part of our city. I actually walked past this the other day. I hope things don't continue to get worse. The photo makes you think - well done.
For such a solemn subject, I wish you hadn't chosen a shot in which one of the subjects appears to be adjusting a wedgie. This could be nice exept for that and the rather fuzzy focus.
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