The reality of life is, mostly you can't get the perfect light, the perfect expression, the perfect situation. Does that mean you can't get a good photo? I can't answer that. The eye is in the beholder. I captured my buddy this morning waiting for breakfast. He did remove his COVID mask which is a plus...but I would like critiques on "As-Is" photo. My understanding is that most of the greatest shots have not been in "created" situations. PS: I am not implying that this is a "great" shot, just that it is captures the essence of a person, but would like critiques about crop, editing, etc, knowing that background and lighting are what they are.
PS: Ultimately, I cropped this to try to take out some of the distraction in the background and worked on the skin tones some.
Allyn, I'm not sure as to the purpose of your post or even the title.
By as-is, did you mean SOOC?
If the goal was to just capture an image of your friend then I think you've done that. It seems like a good likeness of him. It does appear a little forced or maybe that's just how he is.
There are of course many levels of photography and photographers. By that I mean from someone that is just starting out with their first camera all the way to a many year pro formally trained with a BFA.
The more experienced one is at any given genre, the quicker they can instinctively asses a scene and correct for the shortcomings.
You mention the crop but you don't say if you have already cropped or done any PP. Again I just assume that by as-is you mean SOOC but this does not appear to be a 2:3 format but appears already cropped.
As to cropping, as per my training, once any given area/feature stops strengthening the subject, it starts to weaken the subject. For example, what above his head adds to the subject? I would crop anything an inch above his head off. That goes for the remaining 3 sides as well.
Is there a perfect situation? Probably never but we do have withing our control the levels of light, the placement of the subject withing that light and where we place the subject in relation to the background or where we stand and where we hold the camera to control those things so that we include both the subject, background and light that we want in the image. We do the best we can with the imperfect situation we find ourselves in. The reality is, we always have full control of those things we can control!
Back to your image, it's either OOF or very soft and the large areas of blowout can't be fixed, both aspects for which you had full control.
But you're right about one thing, many of the greatest shots ever taken are journalism, and by nature, journalism is not created, preempted maybe but not staged. Yet some of the most famous photographs were very carefully staged and created!
John
You have a good picture of your friend. But as mentioned above, there's many ways to capture a photo and many ways to change it after the shot is taken.
Here, you have great expression and some might say a "busy" background and may opine that it distracts from the subject. OTOH, you show context of where you were when the shot was taken and this may mean something to either you or your friend. So this is a shot for you to cherish as is. Sure, you could crop it or maybe you could have positioned yourself to get an uncluttered background with less bright sky or without that overhang. But that's optional.
Photos have various purposes. I think this one is fine as a memory of your friend.
Thanks guys for taking the time to respond. I was just looking for some thoughts and you both did that. You can't get better at your craft if you aren't looking for input.
Allyn, I don't know if this will help, but when ask to take a quick photo of someone, I look for two things. First is good light and second is a background that is not too busy. Sometimes that's not available, so you work with what you have. You did a good job with this photo. If I were there I might have tried to backed him up a few feet to just under the edge of the umbrella. That would have eliminated the harsh light on one side.
The bottom line is you got a nice image of your friend and that's valuable to you. Actually, natural expressions are sometimes difficult to get because people always want to "smile for the camera". Your friend's expression is more natural and I'd take that anytime. It's more of who he is.
