Don't expect to do too well in this challenge, but I just had to share this shot. I have no idea what this guys was thinking, but he wasn't asking for money, and wasn't doing it as a promo. Just after I captured a few quick shots he was chased off by police officers who lost him in the throngs of people.
Taken with a Raynox 0.5 wide angle lens (wish I used a larger apperature)
Photoshop:
cropped
levels
curves (tried to get the sky no burned out)
cloned (a few distracting elements)
Statistics
Place: 50 out of 109 Avg (all users): 5.4811 Avg (commenters): 6.0833 Avg (participants): 4.8000 Avg (non-participants): 5.7035 Views since voting: 1250 Views during voting: 493 Votes: 264 Comments: 29 Favorites: 0
Hi, as requested, here is an indepth critique of your submission.
First Impression - the most important one: He Singled Himself Out - LOL, he sure did. That was my first thought when I saw this. Definitely a fun shot and I love the wide angle lens use.
Composition: Could be stronger. Dead-center isn't exactly a power spot for the subject. But, with a wide-angle lens, you risk distortion with the rule of thirds.
Subject: Mostly clear, but he is a bit underexposed - well, lighting wise ;-). My first instinct is to fell you to use fill-flash, but I'm not sure how well that works with such a wide-angle lens.
Technical (Colour, focus, and light): Colour - Good Saturation, nice colour.
Focus - pretty sharp.
Light - You need some sort of fill on the subject.
To grow its vote?: First, voters were looking for bigger crowds with more candid shots. Not that I'm saying you did not meet the challenge, but that's my impression of what they voted higher on. The one lighting technical probably could have gotten you a few more points also.
Summary: Very fun shot. I love it, but with a little work it could have been very dramatic. Just for fun, you might want to try a bit of dodging on the subject to brighten him up a bit and see what you get.
It was New York, I bet no one even noticed him. Funny. I wish I could see his face in less of a shadow. But maybe that is to protcet the innocent (or guilty)
This is a cute shot - lol.
Challenge-wise, kinda' doesn't meet the challenge in that he isn't selected out of a crowd by minimal depth of field. His face is also so dark/in the shadows and it hurts this image. (4)
I love that guy, he turns up everywhere. Crazy guy even out in the rain.
I liked that you used a fisheye lens on this gives that full perspective of times square for him to stand out of. I just wish there was more light on his face, but only so much can be done with his hat ;)
He sure did single himself out, so maybe he should be scored instead of the photographer. But then again, he also singled himself by not being in a crowd instead of following the details of the challenge either: "Use minimal depth-of-field to your advantage to help isolate your subject".
My comments are the culmination of seeing so many photos in which the photographer seemed to cave in to the difficulties of meeting the details associated with the challenge. I finally caved in and commented while viewing your entry, but the gist of my comments could be applied to the majority of entries.
One thing that you definitely achieved was creativity. Outside of the challenge details, I like this shot. I know it is difficult to achieve, but I would like to see less light in the background and more light on the cowboy's face.
The challenge asked for a person to be singled out in a crowd using shallow depth of field. Ooops both the crowd and the shallow DOF ran away ... I'm not surprised - yuk!
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
