I Contemplate My Crimeby
_eugComment by ClubJuggle: Greetings from the Critique Club!
ESP is certainly a great place for photography, and I regret that I have yet to go there. I've parked in its shadow countless times to have dinner at London Café 2 blocks away, but have yet to actually visit. I need to remedy that.
I like this image quite a lot. You composition, though unconventional, works quite well in this case, as a tighter crop at the top would lose the beam of light. Centering the head as you did was, indeed, the way to go in this case.
Though I recognize you probably did not have a way to accomplish this at the time, I would have preferred to see more light on the face, so as to make that the focus of this photograph. As it is, the light draws primary attention to the top of the prisoner's hat (try looking at this from across the room and you'll see what I mean). This is partially compensated for by the dimmer light on the shirt, which forces the eye to circle around from the hat, down and to the right toward the shirt, and then to be pulled back across the face by the brighter light on the hat. If you have an opportunity to re-shoot this at a later date, you might try bringing a pen light or other small, focused light with you. A 5-second exposure should allow you plenty of opportunity to use a painting with light technique to bring better light the face. Another option, which may be more practical, is to simply dodge the face in post-processing.
Your exposure, focus and other technicals are flawless here, and the photograph is well-composed and creative to boot. Congratulations on a very good photograph.
~Terry
Photographer found comment helpful.
