New Joiners - People #587

I think that this is nicely done. A reportage portrait of a chef in his kitchen that places him in context and busy doing what he does. I like that it's on a 35mm which is just wide enough to show his surroundings but not wide enough to distort, and I like his off-centre placing. It's a very warm image both emotionally and in terms of colour temperature (the whites are very yellow) but an excellent portrait that captures character.

A very nice meditation on shape and colour that's strong on graphics, and is well seen. I like it's abstractness but if I was being picky, I wonder whether a tighter framing might make the rather desperate elements - the blue of the piling, the blue of the logo more compositionally significant in contrast to the single figure? Either way an excellent effort.

I really like this image and how it's framed: the composition through the trees gives the feeling that we're being led into the frame and nicely surrounds the subject. It is however under exposed so that that highlights are blowing on the bag and the colours are 'soupy'. A more accurate, exposure on the subject itself would give this a more realistic look and tonal range. A nice effort however.

I think that this is a good example of why less can so often be more in composition. If the focus of the image is the washer-woman folding clothes surrounded by sheets and towels, then why is there a distracting figure behind her that gives nothing to the frame? It's our job as photographers to present the clearest image to the viewer. Here, the secondary figure is a potential source of harmonious action - but that hasn't happened. Better to compose around the main subject in an interesting way - either centrally or perhaps hard to the right and fill the rest of the frame with white than include an element that is distracting.

A very eye-catching image indeed that strips the portrait itself to its bare essentials. By the catchlights, it looks like a single soft-box placed just above the model's eye-line. It's a rather harsh and unforgiving light that creates a lot of heavy shadow but here it seems to work well with the direct glare and scarf that accentuates what we can see of the face. Nicely done.

I'm unsure what this image is signalling to. Is it the girls or the passersby? Or the interaction of both? If it's the latter, then the only way to make this a photograph with a 'point of view' is to frame it so that the viewer is clear of your intention and exclude what is extraneous. - the left hand third of the image. It would also mean moving yourself to a position where you might see both parties clearly i.e., square on to them. As a photographer it is your job the 'frame' the world and make images that are interesting for the viewer and that make compositional sense. Well seen but to do that have to move ourselves in relation to what we want to record.

This feels very much like a Mark Cohen (or the more famous Bruce Gilden) image, shot underneath for striking effect. I think it's a very strong effort but technically, it's a little unbalanced with too much flash overexposing the face. The way around this is to either expose more accurately for the entire frame or for a more dramatic effect, slightly under-expose for the sky and then balance that exposure for the face with fill-flash. Additionally, a diffuser over the flash head would reduce (although not eliminate) the shadow from the nose across the eye.
This is however a cracking effort and with a bit of practise could be become a motif in your photography. We'll done.

This is a nice moment captured and I like how the tree balances with its reflection but I'm wondering whether the addition of people actually add much to the composition at all. I can see that there's an interesting pattern here but in such a contrasty situation the dark figures are lost within the shadows. A more accurate rendering of the shadow detail and control of highlights (in the sky) would have helped but with such a strong central motif of the tree it would take a much stronger composition for the figures to make a more harmonious impact. Well seen however.

There are several elements that I can see that are interesting in this image from narrowest to widest. So, we have a detail of the man's hands actually making kimchi; the central figure of the man and woman on his right and her expression. The issue here is that the photographer has tried to combine all the elements into one frame which from where they're standing is confusing. Simplify what you want to say in an image by thinking about what you are really trying to signal to. More, it's rare that an engaging image just drops in front of you: you have to move yourself in relation to the action to 'frame' an interesting way. Well seen but get in amongst the action and physically engage with what you think is interesting!

You've seen an interesting moment here but more than that I'm unsure what you wanted to show the viewer. The difference between taking a quick snap and a making a photograph is intent. If the intention is to creatively record the scene that has captured our attention, its a good idea tho work out how best to do that and position the camera in a way that its image can communicate what we want it to. Here, being closer and isolating perhaps one element of the activity (perhaps the instructor framed through the exercising bodies) might have been a good place to start. Not a bad effort but keep trying to work out what you want to do before you do it.

Although this image has its limitations. its composition and styling of the model, reminded me very much of the work of Julia Margaret Cameron. However, seeing as this is a contemporary image, I'm puzzled why it is so out of focus. Admittedly, it's easy to ascribe character traits to an image but its technical failings - and I am aware that not all images are required to be tack 'sharp' - are I think quite distracting. Shooting wide open wouldn't have helped the problem of camera shake - try stopping down a bit and practising focus (more difficult than it sounds). Keep pushing.

Reflections are a perennial device within art for good reason. From Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait onwards they have been used to depict a simultaneity and here the photographer has managed to give us a brief insight into two lives separated by a few feet in a railway carriage. The window acts as a strong bisection between the two centres of interest and, although exposure-wise it's just on the edge of acceptability, this is a brave and rewarding frame. Well seen and well done.

I think that this image is, by luck or judgement rather intriguing. Its value lies in its framing that 'leads' us into a domestic situation that we might feel we are secretly party to. That said, the exposure is very 'soft' with no discernible blacks in the colour palette. Still a good effort and one that might be improved with careful digital post-processing.

I think that there's an intriguing and rather strange image in here but your framing mitigates against it. Although I understand that there are interesting textual details on the walls, it seems to me that the 'action' of the hand and the children might be better served by framing this tight to the door as a portrait shape. Sometimes we have to adjust our judgements about what we think will happen in line with what things actually do. Still, very well seen.

I like this - not only for the shape of the frame but clearly because it suggests character and insight into the person featured. My concern is however, the exposure,. It feels quite 'flat'. Although the tonal range is pretty wide, sometimes we have to appreciate the quality of light that we're photographing in. A little fill (flash) might have helped, but this appears to have been taken largely against the light (I think it's from behind/ model's left. I might have been tempted to squeeze the highlights towards underexposure by perhaps a quarter to half a stop to get a bit more punch - a (not ideal) compromise but one that might have given a tiny bit more contrast. A good frame in any case.