New Joiners - People #554

Despite this image being technically lacking in some respects, I really like the idea and the emotion it portrays. Sure, it's out of focus but the idea behind it; the framing and the composition means that it captures a genuine feeling and that is what photography should signal to.

A cracking shot. I really like the low-key tone which this monochrome approach brings. Generally I'm not a fan of work like this on a long lens but it does work here - primarily because of the cinematic smoke that's at the centre of the image. In terms of the background, I think he's framed nicely but the lattice of the window (?) is a little distracting. However, this is a pleasing frame.

A strong environmental portrait that confronts the woman's direct stare whilst utilising the window as a frame within a frame - just to emphasise the point of the exercise. I like the exposure and the small details that it reveals - the path of the spilled water and the shape of the hand in front of the body. Overall an excellent effort.

This is nicely done. The low angle emphasises the figures in nature and the shape of the frame emphasises their smallness. Always tricky to make images in bright sunlight but utilising shade, the image almost gets away with it. If I was being very picky, I'd have liked to have seen the mother holding the child's hand (eyes and hands are how we 'read' each other and images are no exception) and the figures are not critically sharp (a smaller aperture here might have helped) but this is a cracking effort.

There's a haunting quality to this image that lies somewhere between the erotic and the disturbing. I like the slow shutter speed that invites movement and I think black and white invokes a sense of mystery and concentrates the central idea - but I find myself constantly scanning the background for shapes and the vertical line that moves my concentration away from the figure. That said, it's engaging and rather hypnotic. Well done.

Whilst this works a 'photograph-as-memory' (and all the better for that) it doesn't work as well as it might as a photograph in its own right. One of the central concerns of composition is the interplay between foreground and background - and making sure the latter doesn't overpower the former. Here, the colour and shape of what is behind the baby's head does just that. Perhaps a tighter frame that followed the child's face that additionally followed format might have been a better idea. That said, I'm sure that you'll have many opportunities to make more images as the little chap grows.

I'm a great believer in using whatever is to hand to make an image and phones are great for that but they have their limitations. Part of that is that they make us lazy and just make images where we sit. This is a case point. The phone as a real-time framing device is actually very useful but it means that we rarely adjust our position on the world. Here, a different position might have obscured the background more and meant a more isolated figure in the foreground. Not a bad effort but like all images one that could benefit from some forethought about what the results might be.

I think that there's something delightful about this almost low-key exposure. Partly it's that the frame goes from dark to light but more it's that the composition takes us from one corner to another with the figure - gloriously unsharp at 1/30th - bisecting it. This has all the elements of a 'feeling' image as opposed to one that directly 'tells'. Well done.

Lovely. A nice moment pretty well caught and recorded. Even though this is a so-called 'snap' it has significance firstly as an aide-memoire but also for a reasonably clear and straightforward composition . Only the technical aspects - the pixelation and the exposure means that it isn't better rewarded.

Although Cartier-Bresson famously quipped that sharpness was a bourgeois concept, it sometimes has its uses. Here, although this frame is nicely composed and more-or-less decently exposed (the highlights are starting to clip) I can see detail on the leaf but not clearly enough on the face of the model. Sometimes that's fine; we can use sharpness creatively but when the photograph is, as here I suspect, a memorial device, it might be better to attend to this aspect of the medium. Shooting at a smaller aperture would help as would either manually focussing or making sure the autofocus isn't 'hunting'.

Whilst I like this image for its colour, graphics and potential, I'm left wanting a bit more. I get the curves - the mirroring of shape in the man's hat and the speed sign but I'm waiting for a face to 'read' the image. There is a picture here but it feels like a 'grab' taken from hiding behind a lamppost. It is sometimes hard to photograph people on the streets but if we're going to do it, I always think that we need to recognise them as people not just ciphers. Keep pushing.

Really nicely done. A strong composition clearly delineates the figure of the girl from the background and the shutter speed is high enough to capture the water spraying through the air. An almost silhouette makes the viewer concentrate on shape and texture as opposed to personality - all in all a great effort.

This is tricky because on one level the image is a recollection of a special moment but on the other, an opportunity to make a more engaging photograph. People will often pose for the camera - and that's fine if both parties are happy - but there's a more interesting image about this man and his craft and his extraordinary background to be sought out here. A bit of time and patience and another image might have revealed itself. Well done for seeing the situation however.

Part of the - excuse the use of the idiom here - meditative process of photography is working out the elements of what you want to say with an image and paying due care to how you'll do that. Here, the issue is not so much the background conflicting with the woman's head (it does) but the fact that the light's against her. That's fine if there's a silhouette or the light's dramatic and adds to the image - but here it simply underexposes the rest of the figure. It's always worth thinking about what you want from a frame before you press the shutter and working out whether you are in the right place to take it. Keep pushing.

Whilst this image does have a nice feel - the curve of the pavement and the sunspot - I think that it could be improved a little.

So much imagery sits between what I call the 'get everything in' picture and a well thought out photograph. The first is pretty much what's here - point a camera at what you see and share the scene. That's fine. However, the audience isn't usually physically with you and, although as Barthes suggested, images can trigger remembrances of sights and smells, that only works for the person who can actually remember the scene in images. For the viewer to share something it has to be 'read' in a way that makes visual sense. So despite you saying there was no time to act - there nearly always is if you're close, ready and confident in what you want to capture. Get in there and get amongst it - you'll be amazed what you can do.