Balinese Market

[daq7]

Yes it is tone mapped, but I think for the most part the tone mapping is rather more subtle than one might expect from past examples.

[daq7]

Man, these women look crushed to me. I almost feel bad about documenting it...

[OldClicker]

Nice colors! This is a very busy scene with a lot of the 'busy-ness' too far away to really tell what is going on. The shot leads me to the back where it's just a jumble of stuff. (Post processing may be making it less sharp, also.) What do you think of a square crop right at the top of the third woman's basket (below the pink)??? - TF

[daq7]

You know, I actually thought about that and even did the crop. I decided that I liked the woman on the left edge at the top providing some balance. But I think it was the wrong decision. The crop needs to be tighter for a couple reasons. You mentioned the buisiness, but also thematically it would be better if we only saw the women that look hard pressed and tired. I will fix this, because that would be better.

[jetrim]

This is one where my best advice is totally useless I think it would have been a far stronger image if you had squatted down and shot along the tables at about eye level with the women. This would have eliminated much of the background distractions and focused more on the subjects. The busyness in the foreground adds to the impact, but the busyness of the background wall is just distracting, in my opinion. The tone mapping is fine, and the colors pop nicely.

[daq7]

I agree Jet, thanks. Funny thing is, I think my eye is changing. I am starting to think more about how to take the shot rather than just taking the shot. I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of photo, so hopefully I can improve. But the point of posting these is to learn, and I think you are very much right about what would have been the best way to shoot this.

The good thing is that I weigh about 75 pounds less than I did when I took this shot, so I may be more willing to crouch in the future. ha.