1st post!

[rezs2jen]

hello all,
long story short, i was on a vacation in Philippines, got tired of my point and shoot, and picked up an evolt 500. this is one of my favorite shots, but, as an amature, id like some feedback if there is anything i could improve in my shot, as i dont know what to look for.
i dont mind if anyone wishes to edit the shot.

[trog100]

the colours are nice and tropical.. the fire eater subject very impressive..

burning out the power lines is amusing and all the people at the bottom get in the way of the main subject.. the fire eater..

eye catching but messy..

trog

[readingr]

For me this represents a carnival atmosphere and the colours are wonderful.

On the technical side as trog said its too busy.

It would be better in portrait if the intention was the fire eater, or to zoom out to give a better view of the people giving the overall atmosphere of the occasion. The fire eater being centred doesn't really help this picture either, he should be more to the left of the picture. You also need to include all of his legs or crop him at the waist.

You need to think more of composition when taking the shot so that PP is reduced.

Example of a crop from the original, but still needs more leg.

Roger

[Rocket_Scientist]

I love the plethora of colors! Maybe it's just me, but I think this has a lot of potential for post processing. I wouldn't crop out any of the audience, but maye a little from the top. The power lines are unfortunate. If you have Photoshop, my first thoughts would be to create a second layer with just the fire-eater and fire, or even a third layer with just the brightest parts of the fire. Then, lower the color saturation a little in the background, but not too much--don't want to lose the lovely purples, and then enhance the saturation a little on the second layer. May be even bring up the yellow in the fire a little. If this all works, you can make the fire eater stand out from the background, while maintaining the panorama-like feeling of the crowd.

[Mr Yuck]

Great colors and action.

My suggestion is to watch that horizon, make sure it's level

[MarcusK]

Well first of all, welcome aboard rez.... you will be loving this forum, and a word of advice from someone who went through the same things as you its gonna get rough, but dont let that turn you away, its all in the spirit of sharing and learning...

As for the Picture (your first post) i love the color...and i think the overall exposure is pretty good...

As for composition, it does need fixing...Seeing as this was a carnival or festival, then i am guessing you had to take up a high position in order to take the shot due to the crowd available... if you did not get higher, then maybe you could have, it would have solved the problem of the lines and given you more crowd to show... being quite an interesting atmosphere...

Hope this helps,
Marc

[rezs2jen]

thanks for the advice, its such a blast taking pictures. the cables in the back are a lot lower than they are in the US, they are mounted less than 2 stories high, because it was an atmosphere of fast paste movement, i had it in continuous auto focus which requires the subject to be in the center (e500) or am i mistaken?

[Mr Yuck]

you can hold down the button halfway on most cameras to do the autofocus and metering, then compose, then press button rest of the way.

[mwitt]

wow what a cool shot! the only thing i would say is that the power lines distract me...maybe try cloning them out.

other than that, great first!