Re: Re: Digital Darkroom Assignment

#19437
Duncan Rawlinson
Keymaster

Wow!

Marvelous job. The enhancements are subtle but undoubtedly enhancements. The most noticeable change in my opinion is the additional attention drawn towards the child’s eyes.

In any type of portrait photography, the eyes are the most important component of the composition. Your focus on the eyes, as well as your ability to enhance the vibrancy of the eyes really helps make this a standout photograph. Congratulations.

I see you’ve also used the clone tool to help get rid of the carpet at the top of the composition. You’ve done a good job of removing the carpet, but I’m not sure it was necessary. In my opinion the carpet helped you incorporate an interesting secondary element into the composition. Not only does it provide a line through your composition, but it also helps break up the color of the shot to include more gradients of brown. If the carpet was purple or green I might think that it should be removed, but I actually think the colors work well together.

I know we talk a lot about simplification in this class, but it’s important to go overboard with that idea as well. Otherwise you could suffer from boring compositions that overuse negative space. What saves the edited composition is that there is a lot of texture in the beige rug. This too acts as an interesting secondary element. Without that texture, the negative space would be “dead space”. Usually blank space isn’t very exiting. Always look for ways to add color gradients, textures and generally look for ways to “break up” your background a bit. I think you’ll find your compositions will be more interesting.

That being said, what you’ve done is great. I’m not criticizing, I just want you to be aware of the fact that there are some dangers involved with simplification as well.

Great work. I’m really impressed with this image!