This Wasn't Supposed to Happen!by
DiamondPeteComment by BobsterLobster: Critique Club:
An interesting use of motion-blur, and certainly fits the challenge.
However, the blur seems accidental rather than deliberate... the only thing which is reasonably sharp in the shot is his bum, which I'm sure is not meant to be the focus of the picture. If you'd panned the camera the follow the movement of his face, which has a great expression, I'm sure the photo would have worked really well. That way the viewer's eye would be drawn to the face first, and it is his expression that would have made the photo work excellently as a 'surprise' shot.
Compositionally the photo seems a bit chaotic. The background is very distracting and makes the photo look more like a snapshot because the feeling is that the photographer didn't put a lot of thought into how it would affect the final composition. The sky also looks like an afterthought... it's usually a good idea to place horizons or skies on a 3rd junction (rule of thirds). This ties in with another reason I think the composition doesn't work for me... the person is centred in the frame, which draws attention to his bottom again, as that is the part of him which is in the centre of the frame. If you insist on centring your subject, be aware that the eyes should be where the viewer's eye will want to go first, so centre the eyes/face in your frame.
I would have been tempted to crop the picture keeping the top-left quarter. This would give you his head, torso and upper legs. I would crop out the sky. This would compositionally focus more on his face, and introduce a nice top-left to bottom-right diagonal in the composition.
In conclusion: in my opinion this picture is a little too much like a snapshot and needs more thought on it's composition. The motion blur is a nice touch, but we need more sharpness in the shot... this would work well if the face was sharp.
Photographer found comment helpful.