Sharron Leppien, QPSA
About the Image(s)
Please be brutally honest with this image. I absolutely adore this but…. I have entered it into PT and it has gotten no where. I can pick a up a golds with my other entries but this one won’t even get an acceptance.
Am I too emotionally invested in it? I know that it is soft in the focus on the lead man but I thought that the overall interest and story telling would out weigh its flaws. Am I missing something? I have entered this in Mono thinking that the softness is less noticeable than in colour.
Back story:- Travelling in a 4x4 with my travel buddy on the south west coast of Madagascar when we rounded a bend and lo and behold here was a convoy of farmers taking their harvest to market. My friend and I tried to jump out of the car but, because we had done this many times on this day we were cutting it fine to make the last river crossing before dark, our driver locked the doors. Complaining loudly was not working so, I did some mental maths, chose the setttings, held the camera at arms length out the window and fired off shots and every now and again refocusing ( back button focus), hoping that I may get something worth keeping. I have loads of other shots but this is the one that really caught my attention.
So again, please be brutal. Nothing will stop me from loving it but your critic will help me understand why this image just bombs.
Nikon D850, Nikon 24-120mm @ 28mm, f8.0, iso 200, 1/320sec edited in LR and PS and apart from the cropping and mono conversion not much else considering the stipulations for Photo Travel.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
18 comments posted
  Posted: 01/01/2020 17:15:11
I also see a major leading line with the carts, so I am interested in continuing that aspect. To me, the blandness of the sky and bright ground don't help the image, so to guide the viewer I added gradient filters above and below the cart line and then added a slight exposure (1/2 stop) increase to the lead group and the follow-on carts. I hope that these changes add to the depth of the image.
  Posted: 01/02/2020 02:09:22
I agree entirely with you regarding the sky and am pretty sure I know what to do now. I will stop treating this a PT or PJ image and edit it for PIDM so I can replace the sky with one with more interest.
  Posted: 01/18/2020 17:33:28
(Group 32)
My favourite part of this image is the baby. Thanks for the word amazing, I might just take that and run :)   Posted: 01/18/2020 17:45:26
(Groups 0 & 53)
I think Victor has the right idea, creating portraits from the clusters of people in the caravan. There's a lot to work with here and I can see many images coming out of this capture. d;¬{D   Posted: 01/05/2020 12:51:16