"When I was a boy... "by
LipstudiosComment by purpleflutterby13: Greetings from the Critique Club.
Nice image - the angle of the swing works well, and the expression on the boy's face is perfect. As the commenters have picked up on already, it's really a shame that the image wasn't captured with a higher shutter speed, as it's not quite crisp enough, and as far as I can tell, the focus seems to be on the swing rather than the boy's face. This can be fixed to a certain extent in post-processing using unsharp mask, just don't overdo it, as it does show.
There are a lot of distracting elements in the photo, but unless the photo was taken from a completely different POV, I don't think there's a way to fix this - a tighter crop wouldn't really do much for the photo. It's fine to just go with it anyway - I suppose part of the point of the picture is to put the boy using the mobile phone in contract with a representation of traditional childhood (boy on phone in amongst cuddly toys would've been cute :) ). However, I would crop off the vertical wooden pillar on the left - I think the diagonals in the photo show up much more nicely without it.
In terms of post-processing: I would've increased the contract and saturation quite a lot. In order to represent childhood, you want the colours to be bright and jumping out towards the viewer. Also, running it through Neat Image would make the foreground smoother and the background more blurry (if that's something you'd desire to do).
Here's the edit:
Anyway, hope this helps.
PM me if you have any questions.
Jelena
Message edited by author 2007-04-02 21:31:00. 
Photographer found comment helpful.