Somewhat by accident of course. This is the bride at her reception. Iford XP2, Canon 100mm f2.0.

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), December 14, 2000

Answers

i really like this. spontaneous, intimate, with great timing. the sense of movement is not overdone, and the xp2 handles the skin tones very well.

-- wayne harrison (wayno@netmcr.com), December 14, 2000.

Very nice. The photograph evokes the sounds and atmosphere of a cocktail party, and it portrays well the action of friendly dialog between the two subjects.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), December 14, 2000.

What the others have said...

Also, and I hate doing this (since posters here think about how they are presenting their work).. but I'm going to, hopefully to learn something... appologies John in advance!

I'd take 76 pixels of the left and 5 off the right. What do people think, or am off track? (this is a learning process for me!)

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@unite.com.au), December 14, 2000.

Nigel, I see where you are going with that, and I think your rendition looks pretty good, but, even so, I think even the slightest modification to an image changes the artist's original vision. And I do believe vision lies within the editing and presentation process as much or nearly as much as the taking of the actual photograph.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), December 14, 2000.

Having posted that, however, I want to add that it can be amazing to what extent a few pixels either way can affect an image. I think the difference here is striking.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), December 14, 2000.

That's an interesting crop, just a bit farther and it will be square and Tom will like it :-)

Nice casual shot, great moment capture.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), December 14, 2000.

I definitely agree that some cropping is in order. And I don't believe in an "artist's vision" - at least not in my case!

When I put this on my site, I'll probably retouch the upper right corner instead of cropping it (perhaps even darken it in) and I'd only crop about half as far from the left as you did. (I like both the proportions better that way and keeping the crown of the other girl's head.)

I did apply a bit of sharpening to this in Photoshop. It tightened up the line of her dress and the laugh lines around her eyes.

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), December 14, 2000.

I think the crop reduces the sense of movement, and so much so that the motion blur then becomes an annoyance instead of a cue.

My eye keeps trying to make sense of the brightest blob top centre. Burning it down a tad to match the two at the bottom helps. Another tiny nit is that her smile looks the teensiest bit forced, but not badly so.

In any case a great 'on the day' shot to mix in with the more static formals.

-- Struan Gray (struan.gray@sljus.lu.se), December 17, 2000.

Ha ha ha... you sharpened the laugh lines around her eyes??? You guys really do need some women around this place! No... i understand what you did, it was just funny to read that. Most women think it's just fine for those lines to be a bit ... shall we say "soft". ;o)

This is very nice with just the right amount of motion blur to enhanced the spontaneity, and i like the way you've composed it with her looking into the image and with her profile against that nice dark area in the background. I would carefully clean up that little thing under her left eye...the light spot. I'm also quite bothered by the large white light at center top. If this were mine i'd ( digitally), make it go away. Beautiful bride by the way.

-- Susan Daly (Slascaux@aol.com), December 20, 2000.