This image was submitted by Mike Baker from Edinburgh in Scotland.

Mike has been interested in photography since he was a kid and he has a great eye for details and a style of photography that is close to my heart.

"Girl and Sculpture"by Mike Baker - Original

Mike took this picture in Paris during a short holiday with his then girlfriend (now wife). Sounds like it was a romantic trip to Paris, doesn’t it? Good on you Mike!

Here is what Mike says about the creation of the picture:

It was an unusually warm October, and we stopped in a square near Notre Dame Cathedral to rest while we ate our ice creams. There was a huge sculpture of a head resting on a hand, and the children were playing on it. We thought it was a wonderful sight – at home, someone would have chased the children off it!

When I look at Mike’s “Girl and Sculpture” the first thing I notice is an immediate sense of scale.

Looking at the image I also feel that this is a beautiful simplied extraction of a bigger and probably much busier scene than we are lead to believe here.

Probably in the same split second that I register the concept of scale my eyes go straight to the little girl in red.

Red is a primary colour and is often perceived as having a ‘loud’ or ‘emotional’ visual effect. In this picture the red clearly stands out against the more neutral colour of the sculpture.

The red colour together with the girl’s round face as a ‘point’ on the picture surface and placed in a powerful position within the picture frame makes for a good composition that strongly supports the idea to drive the viewer’s attention to the the main subject. That said, I’d still like to talk a little bit more about the composition in a minute.

In this picture the girl is the star and the sculpture is the supporting actor.

Technically the photo is well executed in terms of exposure, colour representation and point of focus. It’s taken in what looks like beautiful soft light on an overcast Paris day. Overall a very pleasing photograph.

Composition & Crops

Let’s talk a little bit more about the composition and the crop (or the way Mike framed this).

In many ways I’m really in two minds about the picture as it is and I’m thinking about cropping it even tighter to see how it compares to the original.

The reason I’m in two minds is because on one hand I like the angles in the top left and top right corners created by the edges of the sculpture head. These angles create a nice sense of dynamism in the image and also provides the picture with depth and dimension.

However the edges of these angles are are also the highest points of contrast in the picture (specially in the top right) and as such my eyes are pulled away from the girl and they go up to these two high contrast edges, then back to the girl, back up to the edges, and my eyes tend to bounce around like this. 

The high contrast edges are vying for my attention when I feel like I should be concentrating (and my eyes should find rest) on the little girl.

Adding to this distraction is the somewhat bright spots in the greenery in the very top right corner (of course these can be cloned out relatively easy). Have a look at my comments below and then try to scroll back up to the original to see if you follow my response to the image.

"Girl and Sculpture"by Mike Baker - Notes

This make me think about trying a tighter crop.

"Girl and Sculpture" by Mike Baker - Crop

While I like the tighter crop I have to admit that it still leaves me in doubt if this is the right way to go.

There is little doubt that it helps focus more attention on the girl and it stops the eye from bouncing around as much. It also seems to bring out more texture in the sculpture – that is to say that the eyes seem to notice the texture of the sculpture more (this has a bearing on the contrast of textures – see comments in my conclusion).

However at the same time it also makes the image feel a little bit ‘flatter’ and it loses some of its depth and dimension which is a bit of a shame.

So I’m really undecided about this and I will hand it over to you as the reader/viewer to think about your own preference (you can share a comment about this below).

Expression

When I focus my attention on the girl I start thinking about her expression.

At first glance she looks like she might be in a bit of a daze, perhaps pausing for a second in her play after noticing something. It’s quite cute, but I’m not quite sure if this is really what is going on. It could also simply be where Mike happened to freeze the moment.

Generally speaking I would have liked the girl to display a stronger expression in this pictue. There is a sense of her being in a daze, perhaps, but the expression is not quite strong enough to create a sense of mystery and therefore the mood is not quite strong enough to really captivate or move me. She is a beautiful girl, no doubt about that, but I’m still left wishing for a stronger expression to really make this image stand out from the crowd.

Conclusion

While I’m undecided about the overall crop and I’m wishing for a stronger expression from the girl I still think Mike has created a really great image here.

He has used some simple and very strong compostional elements which I can really appreciate as I thoroughly enjoy images that are boiled down to the bare essentials.

I also really like the contrast of textures in the image, between the girl’s soft face and the coarse texture of the sculptural face. This is a very nice detail in this image.

Black and White as an Alternative

While the red colour of the girl’s top plays quite an important role in this picture I still think it’s worth thinking about colour.

Does this image really need to be in colour? This is a question you can ask about all your images. Does colour add an important element to your image?

In the case of Mike’s image I think his composition is still strong enough to stand on its own without colour, so I decided to see what the image would look like in black and white.

Once again I think will let you be the judge of what works best; colour or black and white? Personally, again I’m a little in doubt although I think my preference edges towards keeping the image in colour.

All in all a very interesting image to critique and I hope you have enjoyed thinking about this image as much as I did.

A big thank you to Mike for submitting this image to the Weekly Photo Critique. You can see more of Mike’s work on his website: Photography by Mike Baker. Mike also authors a great photography blog with the creative name Phowto which is well worth a visit too.

If you have an image you would like to submit to the weekly critique you can find more details on the Photo Critiques page.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Photo Critique No. 4 – “At Piha”
• Photo Critique No. 2 – “We Recycle!”
• Photo Critique No. 1 – “Fishing in Paradise”