HUGE Turkey Leg at the Renaissance Faire!

[sheil]

Hey everyone,

This is my one of my first posts to Digital Photography School, although I've been a long-time lurker. Hoping to get a critique on a shot that my girlfriend took of me at the NY Renaissance Faire.

The shot was fired at f/4.5 because that was a low as the kit lens would go (I've since upgraded). It was a cloudy day and the colors weren't really popping, so I decided to go black and white. Tightly cropped the image so it fit right around me and added a vignette to draw attention to the center of the frame. Also underexposed the actual turkey leg meat using Lightroom's paint tool since it was really washed out (again, the cloudy day screwed up the lighting so I had to fix a lot in post. Cheating, I know... :/ )

I like the shot because it's humorous and conveys some solid emotion (seriously, that turkey leg was HUGE!) Can you all take a look and let me know what you think? What areas of the photo need improving and what are some things that should have been thought about prior to taking this phtoo? I'm really trying to improve my skills, so I would sincerely appreciate all criticism. Thank you so much!

Details about the equipment and shot: Canon Rebel XS, 18-55mm Kit Lens, f/4.5, 1/400 sec, ISO 200, 29mm focal length, flash did not fire

[PhilD41]

Personally I like it. I like the color treatment as well. Where as more separation from the background would be nice, this works okay. I might be tempted to adjust the crop a little. The lower half of the image is almost all black due to your shirt. I would try removing some of the bottom and right side of the image to move your face more to the right third ( or just a hair over ) of the image. I think this would balance the image a little more and help the focus move a little more to the turkey. Just my 2 cents.

[sheil]

Originally Posted by PhilD41

Personally I like it. I like the color treatment as well. Where as more separation from the background would be nice, this works okay. I might be tempted to adjust the crop a little. The lower half of the image is almost all black due to your shirt. I would try removing some of the bottom and right side of the image to move your face more to the right third ( or just a hair over ) of the image. I think this would balance the image a little more and help the focus move a little more to the turkey. Just my 2 cents.

Thank you so much for the kind advice! I'll mess around with a tighter crop to see how it looks, but I was a little worried that cropping the bottom too tight would make it difficult to see where my body actually was. Figured the extra space acted as a way to "establish" the body within the frame. That said, I do agree with your suggestion to crop the right and move the face over to the right third.. makes sense and something I definitely did not think about earlier.

Thanks again! Really appreciate it!