oldrattler wrote:
This image has character, literally and figuratively.. Nice work..
@oldrattler,
Thanks, glad you like it.
If you track down the earlier threads, I intentionally took a softer approach for this image. In retrospect I much prefer this to the more harsh, "darker", earlier images.
Nice natural light capture. The only thing I'd suggest is a tighter crop on the top to eliminate the bright gap over the head and also on the left for the same reason. The hat and dark shirt are forming a very effective frame and visual buffer that works to keep attention focused on the face, but that when looking at the face those bright gaps on the edges of the frame beckon screaming "come look at me" to the brain.
There's a physiological reason for things on the edges of photos being distracting. The rod cells that cover the periphery of the retina are 3000x more sensitive to light than the cone cells in the center 2% of the field of view where the brain mentally focus all your attention. That's why at night you can see better out of the corner of your eyes than staring straight ahead. 3000x sounds like a huge difference but the response of the eye is logarithmic so the difference in perceived brightness is similar to that of a transparency viewed on a light table.
If you try cropping just along the top of the hat and eliminate the gap your should notice a difference in how long your attention stays on the face. The bright gap on the left has a similar effect of creating eye catching contrast. If cropped in to eliminate that bright gap there would be one less temptation nagging the brain of the view to go look at.
Another approach to the goal of keeping attention on the face would be to surround the photo with a wide light toned mat to increase the light negative space around the dark shirt and hat to the point they balance and the viewer stays on the contrasting face between them.
AuntiPode wrote:
It's good. He seems world weary. Had he been leaning a bit more as if a bit more bent down by life, it could have made and even stronger statement. Perhaps a bit more vignette to concentrate the eye more on his face?
