a little different

[Superherosmommy]

I took this photo back in may. and I like it for the fact that its a little different, which I was going for but I know it could be a whole lot better, Not sure if I should have made it a little darker? or what it is that I could do to make it better cant seem to put my finger on it. any critique on it would be much appreicated..

taken with a Canon t2i shutter speed 1/1600 fstop 5.6 lens 55-250 mm iso 3200

[Tito87]

Here you have two different kinds of light: the little kid is being backlit, while the man is getting the full force of the sun in his face. It appears that you metered the light off the kid's face--that is the reason why the man is overexposed.

[3bayjunkie]

pretty cool photo. It looks a little bright, bot not too bad.

[Superherosmommy]

Thank you both for your input I really appreicate it..

[BigFuzzy]

There are two issues here, for me, that take away from this being as good as it could of.

First, though, I'll say good job trying to be different and taking a new/interesting perspective, many here don't as 99% of photos seem to be taken from the "I'm standing here with camera at eye level" perspective... ie booooring.

Having said that, this image is seriously blown out in some areas and there are many (to me) distracting elements in this image.

Lighting - Clearly shot during mid day bright sun which is pretty much the worst consitions to shoot in. This has caused much of the mans face and chest to be distractingly bright. Not much you can do in this sort of situation other than better positioning of the subject or some sort of flash usage. Obviously tough to shoot in always perfect conditions, but the blown parts of his face really hurt this image for me.

Distracting elements - There are lots of things that compete for the viewers eye. The big bar that cuts the kid in half is the main one followed closely by the distracting things behind (above) the two subjects. Plus his arm and bar cover a large portion of the childs face which could have (should have?) been the main point of interest in this image and because of the blockage, my eyes go to the next likely thing...his face which has the above mentioned lighting issues.

In the end, before hitting the shutter, you have to force yourself to think "how's the light hititng my subjects, is there a bright vs. dark discrepancy?" and "what can be distracting from this scene?" This is close to being a real zinger, but right now, for me, it's just too busy a scene with too many lighting issues on the most eye drawing elements of the scene.

I hope this helps maybe identify the thing you couldn't put your finger on?