sculptures

Here are a few sculptures that I shot while walking around downtown the other day. I would really like to get a shallower depth of field but I shot as wide open as I could and still the DOF is not shallow at all. Other than that what do you think?

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/createsean/5101​311335/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/createsean/5101​905738/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/createsean/5101​905568/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/createsean/5101​906024/

These shots are very busy. However, there's not a lot you can do about it. In general -- and this is a personal opinion -- photographs of other people's creations don't do it for me. The exception, of course, is if you took them to illustrate a review.

Image 0902 is a classic shot that does well because of the juxtaposition of the real person and the sculpture. There are many stories here: the observation that she's sitting as far away from his as she can, and in fact leaning away from him. That he's reading a book and she's texting; so many ironies in this. Too bad about the building map cluttering up the background.

My general comments about all of them in in line with joedlh, that there's too many distractions competing for attention in the photos. Of course, you realized this by noting the depth of field issue.

Image 898: A little bit better positioning would have eliminated the 3 flags coming out of the top. As it is, it looks like a crown.

Image 900: Too busy in BG to salvage. Nice contrast, though.

Image 899: Too bad for the banner. Again, BG melds with sculpture too much, though not much you could do about that.

Image 902: Would like to see more of her face. Smoker in BG could be cropped out. Feet are cut off. Photo was taken slightly off center, and a bit tilted, combined with sloped wall & railing, makes for uneasy perspective. Signage behind subject is unfortunate, as it is distracting.

As far as joe's comments (sorry joe, not trying to pick on your comments - just offering another viewpoint) about photographing others art works, I've seen a lot of comments on this very subject, and it doesn't bother me at all. As long as you're not depicting the image as something that you did when you didn't, you're ok. Clearly, you're just documenting a public display, and putting your own artistic spin on it. It's really no different than photographing a building, which a building is a copyrighted work by the architect, but no one ever complains about that. If you were trying to sell images of the sculptures, that opens up a whole other bag of worms, though.

Thanks for your comments. I can't believe I didn't notice the flag poles, yes that is really unfortunate. Will crop the smoker out.