I’m back, finally to being able to submit photos to the Matador U photo labs! See what a difference having a home makes!
Anyways, the current lab is focused on Environmental Portraits, which I’ve actually seemed to take quite a lot of lately. This particular choice for my submission was taken in Uzbekistan at the Toprak Qala festival I stumbled across in May.
While I love the transition from the scene on canvas to the scene in the background (whch, by the by, the f-stop was a deliberate choice to keep the focus more on the girl and her work than the busy background studded with so many people..may have overdone it a bit though?) I do wish I could see her face. I’ve got a similar photo of the artist next door with full profile but no look at the Qala in the background, though, and I do like this one a bit better. The kid walking through the frame is unfortunate as well, but the area just behind the easel was quite a busy walkway and I didn’t want to wait too long because a bunch of horsemen were preparing to have an extended fight over a goat carcass. So, these are the several things I know should have been different and better.
| Camera | Canon EOS REBEL T3i |
|---|---|
| Exposure | 0.001 sec (1/1600) |
| Aperture | f/3.5 |
| Focal Length | 20 mm (on an 18-200mm Lens) |
| ISO Speed | 100 |
| Exposure Bias | 0 EV |
What else would you suggest?
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I think that this is one of the rare photos where I do not need to see the girl’s face, so actually it works better just as it is! The movement in the girl’s hair adds a feeling of motion and the angle of the board she is painting on creates a nice lead into the rest of the image. As you say the one thing that is a real shame is the boy walking through the shot. Pity there is not a second image with him taken out. Only other things I would say is that I think the angle could be even better with you just crouching down a bit so the girl fills up a bit more of the image and the shadow being cast on her back is then out of the equation. I think you could also bump up the saturation to make colours pop more too. Overall really like this though and think that it is a lovely and unusual environmental portrait – a picture within a picture within a picture!
Thanks for your comments, Laura. To be honest I was in such a hurry at the time that I thought I’d made this shot without anybody walking through, and apparently didn’t spend enough time checking the shot before I moved on. Now that you mention it, I probably could have gone lower and to the left to capture all the same elements but do so in a more pleasant balance. I worry that the image here is a bit static.