Spotted in the Audience

[bbtom10]

I am after some ideas for how to photoshop this picture. The story was that I was at my son's school assembly along with a load of other parents. My camera was pointing at the stage most of the time, but I couldn't find anything inspiring that I could get a nice pic of, then I glanced across to my right and saw a great opportunity to uise depth of field and focus on someone in the audience.

I am still very much a beginner with DOF, hence the extreme aperture (I'm either extreme HIGH DOF or extreme LOW DOF at the moment) but I think that composition wise this picture is pretty good.

The subject is the man staring back at me and I love the way you can actually see his eye through his sunglasses.

So, does it need a change of crop? Perhaps a sharp B&W or Sepia version? Is there any way I can bring out his eye behind his sunglasses a bit more? Is it as decent as I might think?

All comments, compliments and criticisms accepted and gratefully received.



Thanks
Tom

[bbtom10]

Sorry - EXIF:

Nikon D40
Focal length: 200mm
F4.8
Exp 1/100 sec
ISO 800
Exp Comp -0.33

[MrJones]

I don't like the fact that the object on focus takes a really small portion of the picture and the rest is a blur.
plus, as an experiment it is good since you did get the DoF but as a picture it's not quite interesting, just some one holding a camera and half a face of some guy.
sorry if I'm too harsh

[bbtom10]

Well call it like you see it! Thanks though - perhaps a much tighter crop, even a landscape crop of the top 3rd of the image?

I think this would work better in B&W as well but I am struggling to work out a good way to do it (aside from just applying an 'adjustment layer' and making it B&W) - can anyone point me to a good tutorial?

Thanks for the comment though.

Tom

[ill_noize]

For me, I think you have some cropping work to do to hone in more on what your main focus of the picture is. There is too much going on in the pic to really understand what you want the viewer to see without explanation.

[bbtom10]

Thanks for the comments, I've tried the B&W and a severe crop, not sure that it actually improves it at all and I am starting to think that actually the subject is pretty uninteresting.



Oh well, I'll try again with another - I seem to find the problem with Photoshopping is where to stop!

Thanks again
Tom