cropped, resized, adjusted shadows, lightened, cloned out some bright buttons, adjusted colors, added border, saved for web
This was taken at the Welland Canal as the John B. Aird was going through the canal, this fellow was looking out a lower door located on the rear hull near the engine room.
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Place: 383 out of 448 Avg (all users): 4.8881 Avg (commenters): 4.9091 Avg (participants): 4.7708 Avg (non-participants): 5.1277 Views since voting: 743 Views during voting: 275 Votes: 143 Comments: 16 Favorites: 0
Cool looking subject, but the photo just doesn't do it for me...
He's staring straight at you, and wondering why you're taking his photo, which is a great candid in that respect, but we can't really see his eyes, as the sunglasses obscure them a bit.
His Head is also slightly detached, as his overalls and the background are so dark, which is a little off-putting with the flat lighting you've caught here. Solid dark backgrounds tend to work better when the subject is lit more from one side, to give more shape to the person/object.
The other slighting distracting thing is the earmuffs. Candid pictures should tell a wee story, give us some insight into the person. Without reading your comments I have no idea why he is wearing the muffs, who he is, where he is etc. If you look at the images that did well in this challenge you'll notice that most (There are some exceptions to this rule!) tell a more complete story, they have the person(s) and some other stuff. They have background that tells the story, or the people are doing something.
I'm not sure how much you cropped out of this, but if you had kept some of the door frame, which would no doubt be metal with lumpy paint, and possibly some fittings or some sort, then I would tell at a glance that this chap was working on a boat, or at least somewhere industrial. I'd get a connection to why he is wearing the muffs and overalls, and I'd know he was an 'old sea salt' sort of person.
From a technical aspect you've got a colour tint which I suspect is reflected light from the deck.. Again without seeing some of his surroundings this is a little off-putting, although not a major issue.
It feels also looks a little under exposed to me, and I think you've tried to boost it in post editing to bring it up a little, which is where the noise comments have come from during voting.
The focus also seems slight soft, or you've cropped out a small section of the middle, and it was only scaled down slightly. Combined with the pushed exposure this would give you the soft looking feeling to the image.
A few people complained about the border as well, I dunno about that, it keys with the red on the muffs, I'm not fussed either way on borders, although I would have preferred to see the door of the boat, as it would have made a far better image to have the environment described in that way.
Don't be discouraged by this, it's only my opinion and Candids are tough if you're not a keen people photographer!
I think with this shot I would have liked to see more of the surroundings and the reason for his headset. It is a little grainy too - not sure if that was intended.
If the focus here was sharper, or obviously intentionally soft, I think it would be much more effective. As it is, it looks slightly out of focus and grainy.
Does not really say candid to me as he appears to be looking directly to camera. Red border kinda works with the darkness of the edges of the picture and the headphones .
A distracting red border can't rescue the out of focus face and bad composition. The expression isn't great, and a good candid usually needs a sense of context and story.
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