[Leica] Namche Market: focal zone

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Alastair showed:
Subject: Re: [Leica] Namche Market: focal zone

>Here is one I was sure was going to be a winner: M6 with the 90 or  135, 
>looking down on the market watching the guy in the foreground  go through 
>his sales pitch: the deal is almost done when I took  this image: I focused 
>on the "action", but the stupa in the  background is therefore out of the 
>range of the DOF. Being white  big, does it draw the eye and destroy the 
>image, ie is the out  of focus part too dominant and distracting?
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/
>album119/2004Nepal152.jpg.html>
>>
>> http://www.tiny.cc/USQHR

G'day Alastair,
The eyes unfortunately distract more than they add, certainly as we see it 
here!

BUT! Right where your main subject stands bartering there's an arm lower 
left corner with pointing finger sticking into the frame. Not something you 
might catch when shooting due to concentration on eyes and trying to get a 
good depth of sharpness.

It's a minor point, but once seen it becomes quite obvious sticking in.:-(

I think a one stop smaller aperture might've made it work if it still 
allowed a high enough shutter speed to avoid camera shake.

Another thought.Try burning down the eye building to almost the head level 
of the people, very subtly as you don't want to make it so obvious that the 
burn down becomes distracting.

But what bugs me more than the eyes is the damn arm sticking in right at the 
crucial point of people action. :-( Try burning this down, if possible 
without adding to the distraction.

The overall scene is one that could be milked with a whole roll of film 
watching for different moments in the foreground that work with the eyes. 
But that's for the next trip as you don't want to use the whole potential up 
on the first go around! ;-)

ted