Daniel Milnor: Notes on Photography | Llamadas

Notes on Photography is a blog series all about images. Each month, Daniel Milnor will revisit an old photograph and share his notes on what works within each shot, what he would do differently, and why.

IMAGE 1:
Llamadas, Uruguay, 2012

What worked?

Layering
This image was shot with a 50mm at about f/4 or f/4.5. The background was too busy, and there were too many other people to use a 35mm.  My goal was to use the lens to stack and compress a foreground, mid ground, and background, the same thing I would do with a wide angle.

Critical focus
The fact that the woman in critical focus is turning her head and having a small moment, either with herself or with someone else, draws you in.

What didn’t work?

The image is weighted slightly too far to the left. I needed to either take one small step forward or turn my lens to the right slightly. This would have eliminated that empty space on the left (highlighted in white).

Now, I could crop, but I came from the full frame tradition, which means NO cropping. You might think this is silly, but this is the level of critique that real photographers discuss when they’re talking with someone who holds themselves to a high standard.

What do you think makes a great photo? Share your thoughts below. Make a photo book part of your everyday workflow with Blurb’s Book Module in Adobe Lightroom.