Bhuddist Monk

I've posted a few images recently for critique and received some amazing responses so I thought I'd share another I took recently of a monk at a prayer service of some sort for a deceased brethren.

I'm just looking for ideas on how to improve really...

Shooting a profile of a person wearing glasses is always a tricky affair since the temple (the piece that extends from the glasses to the ears) almost always obscures the subject's eye.

You could try 3/4 view (you get a nice 'eye popping' effect sometimes especially when the prescription of the glasses is very strong) or experiment with camera angles - in terms of subject matter, some of the Buddhist monks exude calm even when shot from behind (without any facial expressions to cue in the viewers) - see if you can spot them during your next opportunity.

You've done well with DOF manipulation to isolate the subject from the background, but again, the focus is on the front end of temple of the eyeglass and the monk himself is a little soft. The photo looks a little underexposed.

Keep shooting

^ agree.....

I'd say the DOF is too shallow here... not only is part of his head going soft, but as his back is turned significantly towards the camera he's almost walling off the background. There's no closer foreground before the focused area to lead the eye in, and too little behind him to carry the eye on towards the background. The result is that he looks pasted on. Connecting him more to the monks on the left by using a smaller aperture (or e.g. shooting from further away and cropping) and a slight move to the right would have helped.

I like the general expression you've captured - the humble, gently expectant upturn of the head and open mouth.

It's also noteworth that the row of people in the background are chopped off about the shoulder-line. That's quite a provocative and disturbing thing to do.

The white mats are also a bit too dominant - might burn them down a bit if you want to make the most of the image.

Cheers,
Tony