Knight. Advice on the crop...

[Stephanie C]

Hi. I went to the Abbey Medieval Festival (in QLD Australia for all those non locals) and had a blast taking pictures of EVERYTHING!

This is one of my shots from the day. I'd like a little input about the crop of the shot. I tend to lean towards the wider shot, because it tells a little more about the pic (ie, the crowds gathered to watch) but does the crowd make the shot too busy? The only post I did to this shot, aside from the crop in the second shot, was to bump the saturation a teeny tiny bit, and sharpen it up.
(I also tried a BW conversion, but I think it made the whole shot seem to blend together...)






Thanks!

[TomHarmon]

I think the first crop is better, but the background is so busy that the knight gets a little lost.I dont know your level of skill at photoshop, but I would either darken the background or add a little lens blur to the background to try to seperate the knight a bit more.

[MrJones]

I actually like the second one better, the only thing I get from the wider crop is distraction.

[Stephanie C]

Haha! Well I have absolutely NO photoshop skills! The only 'post' I do is in the canon program that came with my camera... My hubby downloaded GIMP for me to start playing with, but it's a lot for me to try and take in. I'm plodding along with it, but for now that is a far off dream. *sigh*

If I could wave my magic wand I would like to have the background a little more blurry, so that the lines and colours are not as distracting. Perhaps even desaturated the background a bit, to tone it down, so to speak.

I wanted the knight to be the main focus of the shot, but I still like the idea of the crowd gathered to see him (hence my dilemma.)

Thanks for your input.