Christmas Cheaterby
cheegirlComment by CEJ: Hello from the Critique Club!
I have studied your image and have the following to offer:
Composition/perspective - the focus here is on the tree while the main subject is the child. If the impression was to have her appearing to wait for Santa or whatever, it would have been stronger if she was the center of focus and let her expression speak as the tree still would have been recognizable. The child appears to be sitting in front of a doorway. This also takes away from your photo in my opinion. Especially since the door appears to be open. I think to make the point it would have been stronger to have her in a corner behind the tree or at least against a solid wall to give the appearance she is hiding OR crop off more of the door, less of the tree and offset the open door factor. If the concept is showing her opening a present which would be early, her hand is not prominent enough in that area to immediately give that impression as the red tissue paper can easily be mistaken for wrapping decoration. Having her feet cut off makes her toes appear to be sticking out of nowhere detached from her. A lesser crop on the bottom may have worked as well. The dark area of the open door is somewhat distracting (see below).
Color - the colors here are across the spectrum and seem to be, for the most part, well distributed over the scene areas. A slight boost in contrast/saturation may have helped to bring out the reds and greens more to help overcome the browns and dark areas in the background.
Lighting - the lighting is done fairly well. No flares or glares. Nothing seems to be washed out or blown out. The weakest part here is the child's head. It starts to get lost in the darkness of the doorway and the lighter wall behind her head in the hallway is light enough to show difference but dark enough to hide detail. It just creates an odd transition area.
Challenge requirements - in my opinion this is the weakest area of the image. It is not clear what exactly she is doing. There is no representation of time of day to indicate she may be waiting in the middle of the night. If she is not waiting, but watching what mom and dad are doing, wrapping presents, etc., this is also not represented but has to be assumed. If she is opening a present which would be early, her hand needs to be more obvious in that area. As it is, you only see, just barely, the knuckles of a few fingers and these you have to look for as she is not the center of focus.
Overall/my opinion - the concept and idea here are very nice. The execution falls a bit short. It is just hard to determine what exactly she is cheating at as opposed to just sitting next to the tree. And then it is hard to determine just exactly how she is cheating since the hand opening the present (??) just is not prominent enough in that area to make that point clear.
Photographer found comment helpful.
