Help with this photo

[Six]

I took this one the other day at Darling Harbor, but I'm not totaly happy with it. I'm not exactly sure why I'm unhappy with it, it just doesn't seem to create emotion as I had hoped. Some feedback would be great. Do you think the composition is poor, or is it the PPing that is a bit off?

[Matt. K]

It's the composition. The curved wall leads the eye directly out of the picture...if you take a shortcut and look at the person he too is gazing directly out of the picture. All elements lead the eye directly out of the image. That's its weakness.

[Six]

Ah ok thanks Matt, so stuff (lines?) that draw your eye out of the frame = bad, I want to compose so your eye follows the lines to the subject, correct? It seems to me that there are very few occasions in general where you can make this happen? Or am I just not thinking about my composure hard enough?
I am still realy only learning the very basics of composition. So the photo may have worked better, say if I was facing the person?
Does anyone have any links or reading material that will help me with composing my images?

[mudder]

Ah ok thanks Matt, so stuff (lines?) that draw your eye out of the frame = bad, I want to compose so your eye follows the lines to the subject, correct? It seems to me that there are very few occasions in general where you can make this happen? Or am I just not thinking about my composure hard enough?
I am still realy only learning the very basics of composition. So the photo may have worked better, say if I was facing the person?
Does anyone have any links or reading material that will help me with composing my images?

G'day,
I think Matt's feedback is spot-on, to me there doesn't seem to be a central or primary subject for the viewer to focus on, the image seems fairly busy and my eyes wander around looking for something to settle on...

For example, the same scene but from a different viewpoint, maybe lower down and from near the very first seat on the right hand side with all the seats going from BR cnr towards the left, with a fairly large'ish aperture (small number, like 2.8 - 4?) focussed on your subject (the person) which would have your primary bench seat and the person in sharp focus, with the others in front and behind blurred?

Here are some links to have a sticky nose at, a search on the 'net for something like "photographic composition" or something will return GAZILLIONS of links and tutorial sites etc... Here are a few from a search I just did, just grabbed the first few that looked interesting... Have a sticky noe through the "Luminous Landscape" site, there's some excellent articles there...

Also, check out images that are posted for critique and the feedback they get, flood your eye with images that work and from the feedback see why it works for viewers, you pick up good tips that way...

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/colum ... on-2.shtml

http://photoinf.com/

http://www.azuswebworks.com/photography/ph_comp.html

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Photogr ... mposition/

http://www.naturephotographers.net/arti ... 902-1.html

http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl/publication02.htm

http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/ph ... on-01.html

[Matt. K]

It seems to me that there are very few occasions in general where you can make this happen? Or am I just not thinking about my composure hard enough?

Suprisingly....it is not difficult to find lines that work for you. The previous post suggested moving your point of view and that would have worked. If the subject were looking at you then that would strengthen the composition a little and so on. The 3 classical composition lines setup are a circle, triangle and diamond. If you can roughly find lines in these shapes in your images...or move around until they come into play, then you will have much stronger composition. Look for the lines in photographs and painting that you like. It takes a bit of work before you start seeing them...but then you start seeing them everywhere. The aim of composition is to lead the eye around the image space....but never! or almost never! out of the image space.

[Six]

mudder: Ah yes I can see what you mean with the example of a different viewpoint, that would work better. Thanks for all those links, I'll read through them all over the next few days.

Matt. K: Thanks for the tips! I might go out experimenting with them in mind when I next get a chance (damn uni work).

Thanks again to both of your for your help!