Oud, critique please

[baltawfiq]

Hi all, new to POTN. This my first photograph posted here, I welcome your comments and criticism! This image was taken near Petra, Jordan.

wasalaam,
YZ

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/%7Ejschnier/images/20080714105039_img_5773.jpg

[JenniferLShort]

The coloring is a bit dark for my taste and his face is little blurry imo. I would love to see more sharpness in his eyes as this is one of the first places that I look on a face. Thanks for sharing!

[TekHouse]

I agree, the face is OOF

[SwingBopper]

This is a nice portrait but as mentioned above the face is soft. The focus seems to be on the diagram on the left of his shirt - it's sharp. Your f3.5 setting could not pull the face into focus. If you had shot at f8 or so then it his face may have been sharp but with the light you had you would have had to up your ISO up to 800 or 1600 - then the noise gets in. A tough shot to be sure. Best hold shutter half way down, focus on the eyes, and recompose then shoot. Better luck next time.

[JenniferLShort]

Please do not take the cc as a negative. I began to send pictures here and have learned alot from everyone in the forum. Please continue to share your talent/passion and you can only get better.

[mi_reefy]

I like the colours, and the dark feel, but the face of out of focus, annd I think this could have done great with better composition. The picture doesn't work for me because of the poor composition. Welcome to POTN and keep shooting and posting :)

Salam.

[Walczak Photo]

I have to agree with the general consensus here in that the eyes are too soft, but I also have to strongly agree with mi-reefy's comment about the composition. I don't want to sound rude, but this image really just looks like a poor snap shot taken at some kind of festival or something. Beyond learning how to properly focus the camera, I would suggest that you read up on the "rule of thirds" in regards to composition. With this shot, you have the performer's face pretty much near the middle of the image (if anything it's even a bit off to the left). Framing this shot with the performer's face close to the right side of the image, with the performer "looking into the image" would have worked much better. A portrait format with the same guidelines also would have worked well.

In addition, I'm not crazy about the expression the on performer's face. In my mind at least, this is more about "waiting for the moment". Photography is about capturing a moment in time if you will and when it comes to performer's, since it's a still image, you want to capture some "emotion". Again not to be rude here, but to me the look on this guy's face says "What was the next chord again?". My suggestion here would be to wait for the great expressions instead of just snapping away.

Also, this image is a bit dark and it looks to be a little red on my monitor. These things in themselves are easy fixes in PP, but combined with the other issues in this shot...again I'm not trying to be rude here, but this was just a poorly done capture.

Just my $.02 worth as always...hopefully you'll get something out of it and be able to do better next time!

Peace,
Jim