Barack Obama during his appearance in Beaver, PA, on Friday, August 29. I thought I'd make a little statement in my title since people seem to have a knack for voting shots down just because they don't like someone's politics, blah blah blah. It is a PHOTOGRAPHY contest, not a political one :P
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Place: 139 out of 487 Avg (all users): 5.9935 Avg (commenters): 6.5789 Avg (participants): 6.0256 Avg (non-participants): 5.8919 Views since voting: 1355 Views during voting: 274 Votes: 154 Comments: 25 Favorites: 0
I did not vote on your picture but if I had I would have voted a 6. The main reason is the crop, IMO I don't think cropping or positioning the bottom of the photograph right below the belt line was a good idea. It should of been a little higher and also would have given a little more space above the head.
Even though the right half of the photograph has a good red tone it's overcome by the distraction of the black space that tilts upward at the bottom of the photograph. I know the bottle has nice reflections of light and color but not enough to justify leaving it in the photograph.
IMO I feel the photograph would have been much more appealing if taken or cropped vertically about the same distance from on the right as on the left.
As far as politics skewing the votes in this photograph I feel like that may have happened but not only in low votes but in high votes as well. Your photograph did not deserve the 8-one's but I also find it hard to believe it deserves 6-ten's. I feel no one should vote down or up an image based on their political views but we know some will. In this case it looks like it almost evened out.
It's certainly well exposed and sharp, the shallow DOF helping to isolate Mr. Obama from the background.
Unfortunately, his water bottle gets the same treatment. Also, I don't think anyone mentioned this, but for a campaign news shot, he's totally removed from that context. There's no flags, no cheering crowd of supporters, nothing to suggest that this is not a pre-campaign speech by a relatively unknown Senator Obama at a hometown community center. I also think you could lose the entire right half of the image, cropping to vertical and have a stronger image.
Whatever - at least I didn't give you one of those totally unfair 1's. In fact, I scored it much higher but after all, it's not about my personal observations is it?
I highly doubt that's a quote of his. A better photo would be one without the bottled water. By the way: are we aware that his name is Barack (Saddam) Hussein (Osama) Obama and his running mate is Joe (Bin Laden) Biden? Strange...
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