Delicate - Handle with Loveby
photoneerComment by SteveJ: Greetings from the Critique Club:
Handle with Love is your entry for the Delicate challenge. I think it is pushing the envelope of the brief and it takes a bit of shoehorning to make it fit. I can see where your interest lies, but some will consider this a case of looking through what you have taken on a day out and choosing the one you think comes near to fitting. Anyway, I will work through your image and see what results surface.
Technical:
It is helpful when entering an image in a challenge to include processing steps as these assist viewers understand how you came to reach your final photo. It also helps when doing a critique as I then know if there are any things that you are under or over doing which will have a detrimental effect on your score. Your focus is very good as is your DOF thereby bringing most of the image into focus. Your main focal point is the girl's face(your daughter?). The exposure looks accurate, but the background is slightly cluttered, unavoidable usually when taking candid shots. Colour rendition is good and your cropping looks fine, any tighter and you would have left just a wristwatch and a hand on top of the head.
Composition:
Nice use of framing so girl is to the right, but the hands lead the eye to the left, making a cyclical image. The facial expressions are great. You were limited to further cropping to erase background more because it would have affected your two subjects.
Overall:
As I stated at the top, I don't feel it quite fitted the challenge brief and the voters think the same. However, it is not a bad score for a first entry and your scores should start rising as long as you plant down in the middle of the brief. Had this been wider angle, I would have dismissed it as a snapshot. I have nothing against them, but you will sit low in the scores with them, and you will not learn from mistakes. Take chances, experiment and move on. I hope this is helpful and constructive.
Steve
