Patrick Portrait, Georgetown

Environmental - take off the left quarter. Personal, commanding - trim from the right to remove the prominent utility pole. Oddly, both of those come close to the Golden Mean in positioning his nose. Which may mean nothing.

If it is for family/friends, I'd leave it alone. Then to me it speaks of the person.

[But what do I know - I do not make portraits for a good reason!]

I think all the brightness on the right side is a little distracting, especially the red lights. It's probably resolvable by cropping it to a rectangle, which is one of the beauties of working with 6x6. Or else, perhaps by manipulating some of the tones to bring down the values of the red and the sky.

In a perfect world, it might have been helpful to rotate you and the subject to the left so that the building makes more of an overall background. Though that could have you dealing more with the tree.

I guess if you look hard enough, you're going to find something. Even if it isn't, this feels like a cold approach -- a portrait of a stranger, in which case I'm more inclined to embrace the spontaneity of the composition than pick it apart. When you only have a few seconds to work with, you can only be so obsessive about the composition. Reading these comments, one could find themselves in a state of paralysis when given the opportunity to photograph a subject on the street. The utility pole isn't coming out of his head, so it's fine.

Frankly, I'm more put off by the blue/gray cast and the flat lighting which makes it feel a little lifeless.

@bvy That blue-gray cast is a function of your monitor- on my work monitor, it has it, but my work monitor is not calibrated. On my monitor at home, which is calibrated, it looks much snappier, with natural flesh tones.

If it looks right on TheFlyingCamera's monitor then that's what matters but in case this might be helpful both these recent photos look quite blue/grey on my monitor as well and I cannot say that about any other pics I have seen from TheFlyingCamera on my monitor nor about other recent colour pics from others.

It has a bad Blue colour cast in MY monitor too -- could be corrected on the scan in the Free FastStone Image Viewer or a simple Photoshop just as I would in the darkoom -- take out Yellow Filtration at least 25 units in an enlarger.

It is a nice photo - I hope you both like it too.

With regard to the composition, I'm not sure that there isn't just a bit too much space above the top of his head - its only a fraction about 1/10 of the frame.

Also, I find standing my subjects on the left of the frame and looking out to the right somehow gives them a more commanding presence (although I have no idea why)

Martin

Scott, I took a look back through your other color images and they seem off too. There must be a problem with your system at home. Both of my monitors are calibrated to the nth degree, so I know it isn't me.....