This is one of the odder stalls at the Ueno boating lake--huge inflated cartoon characters and other, more traditional, toys. This little boy looked fascinated, though, and definitely didn't want to be dragged away.
Those guys look really big, but maybe it is the perspective of the shot. I agree with Steve about the two focal points. The section with the little boy and his mother is really a sweet section. He sure seem to like those toys, but them that is exactly what the merchant wants. Children are the same no matter where they live. MAry
Thanks, Steve. It was in the hope of receiving thoughtful comments like this that I posted the photo to critiquers corner. I must confess that my eyes were originally on the inflated figures, although when I noticed the little boy I made sure to include him and his mummy. The original was an even wider-angled view, with more people to the right of the mother and more of the jumble of goods under the figures. I couldn't find a better crop than this, and realize that it falls short of ideal, to say the least. I eventually decided that the contrast of HUGE dolss and TINY little boy was the best thing to stress, and came up with this crop.
Roger, I think the capture of the boy, fascinated by the small things that are close to him while the hulking balloons are so dominating is really terrific. There are some problems I see that I don't know how to solve. The first problem is that there are two focal points: the child and mother, and the large balloons. The human interest lies in the people, while the balloons really do dominate the field of vision with their size and brilliance. It's as though there are two photos here, one of the people, and one of the balloons. It seems to me that from your perspective it won't be easy to create a balance that will allow both elements to have their proper place. One thought I had was to crop the photo so that only the legs of the balloons showed. This isn't easy because they would lose much of their imposing essence. The second thought I had was to blur the foreground enough that our attention is drawn to the kid. The third thought I had was to use a lighting filter to darken the balloons and highlight the kid. I tried these a bit with results that didn't satisfy me. I think one of the problems is that the child and mother are not in focus, so drawing attention to them, even though they are the human interest, draws attention to their blurriness. The only alternative not available is to reshoot from a different angle or with the focus on the child. I probably shouldn't have opened my yap, since I don't know what to do, but it's a really fun exercise trying to think about how to get the most satisfactory result, and it was very interesting analyzing what I felt were the pluses (many) and the minuses of your photo. Steve
Mummy knows best in this situation Roger but not a sentiment shared by the child. A scene to be seen (sorry) throughout the World when children go shopping with adults. Wonderful bright colours, great clarity and bagloads of details to be viewed. A lovely piece of street photography my friend neatly captured with the excellent Cosina. Best wishes....Ray
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