Cropping

[SmartWombat]

Again one from the Mavica archive, before I delete it ...

I was attracted to the colours in this.
Apart from cropping the distracting girl on the right, what else would you do to this?
I can see I've done it again, by cutting off the legs of the girl with the ice cream !
I put the subject in the centre of the viewfinder again !!
I know it's a weakness of mine, I get so caught up in what I'm looking for, I forget to check everything else in the discovery of a good moment.

I need to take the advice I've seen offered ot others here: shoot it more than once, from different angles, vary the composition - if you can't go back to do it agian later.

[Elysian]

Don't worry too much about cutting of legs, in this case I don't consider it too distracting. The red, yellow, green and lighter colors are indeed a good basis for an interesting shot. I also agree that the child shouldn't be in the center in this shot and she is when you remove the distracting right part of the photograph.

This child is obviously not just staring, she's focused on something. What is she focused on? The viewers don't know and it can frustrate them, they want to know, because they feel the "story" is not complete. Like I said, only in this particular shot in which the child is "focused" on something in front of her.

Sometimes you have to be some kind of "director" to put a good shot together. Find something that makes the child laugh or smile, try to stear a shot in a certain "direction", hence the word "director". A smiling kid with an ice cream on the left side of the image and part of the face of a smiling mother in the upper/right corner, that's a direction I would like to try out during a shot like this.

Thanks for sharing!

[SmartWombat]

Like I said, only in this particular shot in which the child is "focused" on something in front of her.
Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for your comments!

As I said it's an old shot, from long before I started getting advice and opinions here
I agree on the missing action, in this case I didn't look for the other half of the picture.

One of my problems is going in too tight on what I think is the shot, and finding out afterwards it wasn't Or that I've pinched off fingers or other body parts at the edge of the frame.

Since the MInolta A1/A2 have adjustable focus point inthe EVF, I'm going to try moving the focus point about to force me to recompose when focussing.
Not far off centre, but enough that I don't start out dead centre if I'm trying to focus on someone's eyes!

I'll post again if that works.
Thanks