How to kill your darlings

In your Photography venture, you may have dedicated a "maybe" bucket where you dump photos that you think may be ok. These are most often than not bad photos. Perhaps you find something in them, but regardless they are bad photos that you should have deleted.

Humans, especially artists, are sentimental creatures. They have peculiar ways of attaching themselves to their artwork in ways quite different than how public sees them. An Artist's subjective vision is often what makes their art unique after all. But sometimes sentimental attachments can backfire when they impose a blinding effect in seeing detrimental faults. The artist refuses to see those faults that would otherwise convince them to dump their work which is objectively inferior. 

It is a pity, as recognising what is not right is an opportunity to get it right, whereas not recognising mistakes will stall progress.

My intention when I took this picture was to capture viewers' reaction to a busker's show. It was not about the busker or his show, but the emotion of collective bewilderment I was seeking.

I failed. So the question is what went wrong. 

The fundamental problems with this picture are:

• There is too much unused reflective space in the foreground stealing viewer's attention (orange area.)
• There are 4 foreground subjects, the busker in yellow suit and the children (circled by green.) We cannot see the closest subject's expression, the girl on the right is looking at a direction the busker is pointing to. The girl in the middle has an interesting expression as she is puzzled by the show. The boy on the left has a funny expression. He seems to be amused by what he sees (so as his mother enjoying her child's fun time.) The problem is these subjects are too far away from the viewer. They are too small. 

If it's not good enough, you're not close enough - Robert Capa


I imagine my photographs are printed in A3 and exhibited in a well lit room. A viewer half a meter from my photograph should be able to get what is going on. This is my litmus test for attention. 

• Beyond the immediate foreground subjects, there is a crowd watching the busker (see the plane enclosed by red lines.) When you digitally zoom and look at their expressions you will find them interesting. But they are standing too far away from the viewer who can't see them.
• Overall, there is too much going on. The foreground subjects and the ones at the background are competing for the viewer's attention, even if we could see their expressions.
• Therefore as a whole this is a failed picture. 
• It is a darling, but we must kill it.

Details that might have worked if I was close enough and shooting at a different angle:

The lessons I took from this failed photograph are:

• If it's not good enough, you're not close enough - Robert Capa
• Limit subjects to a single plane but not two. Either choose expressions of foreground subjects (enclosed in green) or background subjects (enclosed in red) but not both. Have a single story that steals the attention span of the viewer.