Speaker`s Corner, Hyde Park, London

Quite a character in the centre, but looks pretty harsh to me.
Regards
John

Works for me!! love the face and the women to the left. A bit of flashing may help but I hope it does not effect the intensity of the face.

In this image, I like the treatment of the background. Harsh, yes, but not detrimental to the image as I see it. Well done.

Works brilliantly for me. This is almost a poster and a political statement. This guy could have been at the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917. It's not portraiture and those rules don't apply.

In a word "Arresting"

I agree with pentaxuserin almost everything except I do think it is a portrait and a damn nice one. Rules are for camera clubs.

Thank you all very much!
So it really comes better than I thought.
I will keep it that way!

PS: As far as I remember he spoke for the IRA, but I am not sure!
It is an old image which I worked on again.

This is wonderful and I feel this is a little harsh contrast wise. If it were me, and this is only my opinion. I would cut the exposure a little, dodge the subject face for maybe 20% of the base exposure then flash the print using white light just enough to cut back the harshness slightly and add some tone to the areas that are stark white.......or you could leave it alone and mount it on the wall. Either way, great image.

Regards,
John

Great image. Have you tried burning in the background with a low contrast filter? The difference in contrast between fore and background might pop out the figure in the foreground even more if the blacks in the backgound were less intense.

But then it might lessen the impact of the image...wouldn't know until one tried. The black detail-less shapes around the central figure are great.

Vaughn

i like the fact the background is harsh. I'd be tempted to suggest leaving the background as is and trying to pull more tones out of the man, but the temptation is quickly tamed by the fact the image is probably better as is.

As a psychiatrist, I see a schizophrenic man hearing voices and the harsh, contrasty faces/figures in the background represent voices/apparitions in his head nicely. I would leave the background as is, but maybe soften the contrast of the central figure a bit. A good place for split contrast printing.