Wrenchin'by
cbellerComment by Bear_Music: There's a lot to like in this image, but a number of things are detracting as well.
Good points: sharpness of, and expression on, face. It's a nice study of concentration. Also the tonalities are rich, it's a good B/W conversion, mellow and smooth.
The croppung seems off to me; the truncated head is arbitrary, the space below the elbow is not doing anything. I tried cropping most of that lower space off and bringing the right edge in so I couldn't see any of the "77" in the background, and this was a tighhter & stronger crop to my eyes. Often, with candids, the crop will make or break the image.
It's unfortunate that the mechanic's hand and the rag are not also sharp. The hand, especially, could be a vital part of the image, but it's not. It looks like if you'd pul;led focus forward a bit, your DOF would have been ample to have had hand and face both sharp.
Finally, and this is critical, the wall behind the head is too bright, and it is pulling my eye in the wrong direction; I want to be following the direction of his gaze, but the eyetrap in upper left is oulling me the other way.
Photographer found comment helpful.
