First Critique - Firenze

[Kitaine]

Hey everyone.

This is my first post to this website and I'd like to see where I stand and how I can improve my pictures. This picture was taken in Florence. I'd really appreciate any kind of feedback on it.



Camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5
Exposure: 1/200
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: +1/3 EV
Flash: Off

[dcclark]

First, welcome to the critiques! It's always difficult to put a photo (I call them "my babies") up for critique, so already you've passed the first big hurdle.

Now, on to the critique.

First, I like the B&W conversion here. It gives a bit of a "classic" feel, specially with the brick pavers and the old building.

Second -- I notice right away that the top of the building is cut off. That's really unfortunate, because it seems like the building is your subject -- composing just a little higher would have brought that in. The lamp post is also cut off. Both are rather disconcerting.

Third -- There is a lot in the foreground -- people walking, some people are walking right out of the frame, the carousel in front of the gate, etc. These are all distracting. With a bit of work, you could probably position yourself (and wait for the right moment) so that most of these distractions are gone. Then, you would have a cleaner photo. Alternatively, you could focus the photo more on a couple (like those in the left foreground) instead of the gate.

Fourth -- as a technical detail, why were you shooting at ISO 1600? This almost certainly decreased your image quality. Given that your shutter speed was 1/200, it's clear that there was enough light -- you could have probably dropped all the way down to ISO 200 and still had a decently fast shutter speed.

Finally -- The building itself looks a bit underexposed. As the main subject, it really needs to pop out a little more compared to the foreground. That could probably be done easily with some carefully applied curves.

Overall, good start -- now you just need to be a bit more careful when reworking this photo.

[Ginger Pixie]

I hope you don't mind (I will take it down if you like) but I cropped your photo to see what it would look like without the lopped off building, and all the foreground.

It doesn't look too interesting, which is probably part of the point I am trying to get over.

Is your focus on the couple? or the building? In your photo the couple are the thing the eye is drawn to, as compositionally, they are pretty much hitting the rule of thirds. If the couple are the focus, I think you could have switched your camera angle, or position to make for a better shot.

If the building is your focus, then make sure you don't miss a bit of it, as it spoils the impact it would have if it was intact.

I hope this doesn't come over wrong, the internet doesn't always translate things the way I mean them. Sometimes one photograph can teach you how to become a much better photographer - I learnt the most from one I took a few months back, and Jiminy Clickitt showed me what was wrong with it - mainly a lack of focus on what was I actually taking a photograph of. I think from that point, I have thought much more about the focus of what I wanted in my picture, and it has helped me to improve. So please just take this as a friendly comment

[Trader]

I like the cropped version that Ginger did. It put an entirely different perspective on the original image. When I first saw the original my first thought was to get rid of that sky on the top left and right to improve the shot.