School Bus shot - still life?

[kmr18819]

(Yes this is my first post)
I have a photo critique for Photography class coming up, and everything has to be black and white. One of the categories is still life... I don't know if a bus would count as that? It's still... But I wouldn't typically think of a school bus as still life. What do you think? And any other comments about the general photo would be appreciated, what could I have done differently? I'm trying to get a feel for what my photography teacher might say in terms of critique. Thank you.


Canon Rebel T1i with 50 mm 1.8
F/5.6 or 6.7
Shutter: 1/80
ISO: 400
Shot in: Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua

[BCampbell]

To answer your question, a still life is an image of an inanimate object. Traditionally that has been a natural object but you'll even find classic paintings of things like tools, obviously man-made objects. So yeah, still life, sure.

As for the photo, I don't know about this B&W conversion. The contrast seems really odd, but that's always an artistic choice. In particular the tires look really odd, way too bright than what I assume they should be. I could be wrong. It's not helped by the fact that you took this during peak hors of the day, the light is just really harsh on the side of that bus. You're also completely blowing out the clouds in the sky.

The framing feels a little tight, but again that's a subjective choice. I'd like to see a bit more of the context of this bus. As it stands I have no idea of the specific who or why behind it. It's just a bus, and I don't know why I should care about it.

Anyway, since this is for a class and they specified B&W I guess they're going to look at technique specifically. I would suggest going back to the original color version (I hope you didn't shoot this in B&W), opening up your channel mixer dialog, and using that to convert to monochrome and play with the color channel sliders for contrast control. You should be able to do something about the washed out look.

[kmr18819]

Thanks for your feedback, it's helpful. The tires are light because they are covered in mud, very greyish-brown even in the original color picture. But I can definitely understand what you're saying. I'll try fixing the contrast, thanks for your help!