Anna, look!by
ajschelComment by ursula: Greetings from the Critique Club
Positives: It tells a story, the two little girls looking at the balloon, one of them pointing at it, wonder and discovery. It's a peaceful image. Nice colours.
Things that work against the image: Both the balloon and the kids are too small, and there's too much other stuff around (the fence, the trees, the huge sky, the large grassy area, the stick and lone tree behind the girls) to look at. The subjects get lost in all of that. Also, the big blue sky is very plain, without much interest. Not a strict ROT image.
Technicals: It looks like you made the image in the evening (?), the light is quite beautiful. It shows up in particular on the tree trunks in back. Your exposure/shutter speed combination seem adequate for the image. You managed to keep colour and detail in the trees/grass/girls/balloon, without blowing out the sky. The post-processing again looks adequate for the image.
Overall impact: The story is beautiful, but it's weak in its presentation. It doesn't come through very well. From a plain compositional point of view, the thirds are thrown to the sides, and there's a big empty space in the middle. The large shadow at the bottom also distracts. In other words, it does comply to the ROT, but not really well, and it tells a story, but not nearly with enough strength.
I hope this helps. Let me know if I can be of further help.
~Ursula
Photographer found comment helpful.
