Spontaneous Portrait

[Poser1005]

Sorry if i seem to be spamming, i just love having people give decent critique of photos, it beats deviantart hands down.

this is a spontaneous portrait of my friend harry, he had time to pose, but not enough time for it to lose it's spontaneity.

I'm just wandering what would be best crop wise or if i should leave it as is, seeing as i quite like it this way:



any comments welcomed

[PLouie]

Because his head is dead center in the photo there is too much space above his head giving it snapshot characteristics. Crop off the top and keep the aspect ratio of the frame and get in closer to the subject. A wider aperture would have also helped to blur the background some more. It might be too distracting to some. If it's already at the widest then get closer to the subject to get more blur and which could rule out having to crop later on.

[jiminyClickit]

Poser1005,

The composition would be improved by cropping and blurring b/g. But if you "quite like it this way," leave it. You can't please everyone. Later if you see it differently, change it.

[brianfarrell]

There's a lot of distracting clutter in the background. That could be improved by using the Blur tool in PS, but had you reframed when taking the shot, you wouldn't need to. (I realise that the 'spontaneous' nature of this picture might not have allowed the reframe, but hey!)


To your question about the crop - I'd crop the top, losing more or less all of the brickwork, but - it's your pic

hth
Brian

[Poser1005]

thanks for the replies, i can definitely see what you mean about the crop, i think that's the way to go. as with the blur i looked at blurring the bg more but wasn't a huge fan, i think i'll crop the shot and leave it as is

thanks again