I was in Paris last week. Part work, but mostly fun. Eating, drinking, being merry, and of course, snapping photos my iPhone–as I do everyday–with no end goal beyond staying creatively engaged.
I was just now kicking through photos from the trip and stumbled on a couple of snapshots I thought were interesting for various reasons. I’ve posted stuff like this before and was really excited by the resulting discussion, so I figured I’d throw it out there again… These are of course just snapshots, but even snapshots have merit. AND these photos are VERY different from one another…. So, simply put, I thought I’d ask for your thoughts, which is better, A or B? And why?
Vote in the comments. Also love to know ‘why’ if you care to explain. 500 px wide images after the jump…
[ASIDE, since Paris reminds me of good food… if you like chasejarvisLIVE, I’m bringing in 2 special guests TOMORROW (Wednesday) at 12 noon pacific/3:00 eastern time. The goal is to combine a few of my passions and share them with you: photography, food, the internet. As such, join me tomorrow to welcome….
Guest #1 Penny DeLosSantos: Food/Lifestyle/Travel and National Geographic photographer Penny DeLosSantos (@pennydelosantos). Well talk about photo, food, and travel…photographing in the world’s most suicide bombed markets in the middle east, travels to more than 40 countries, and the art of combining your passions into a career.
Guest #2 Barnaby Dorfman: Barnaby is a legendary tech guru turned entreprenuer who recently founded Foodista [@foodista] – the world’s leading online food encyclopedia/wiki and an overall amazing site. Combine food, tech, and storytelling and you get a thick slice of Barnaby. Hope to see you at http://www.chasejarvis.com/live tomorrow ….]
Now go vote on those photos below. Tell me what you think…
Here’s Photo A:
Here’s Photo B: 
Which is better and why?
I prefer B.
Photo A for sure. It has a much stronger composition compared to B. If you take a way the ferris wheel from Photo B it becomes pretty typical for me. I can look at photo B and take it in quickly. My eye wants to spend time in Photo A. Some might prefer this quick and easy to grab photo B approach, but I find it far less interesting and on the whole the composition is rather predictable.
It’s really no mystery that the question is very subjective by the very nature of asking for our opinion. However, your question is similar to my asking, “Chase, what tastes better to you; this apple or this orange?” I’m sure they’re both awesome if they’re fresh and you happen to like both apples and oranges, but they’re two separate entities. I see these two photos the same way. They’re two very different photos, both in composition and style. I may like one more than the other, but that’s a completely personal choice and has nothing to do with the “quality” of the photograph (whatever that means, really).
I don’t think the distinction should be between which is better than the other, but rather something others have alluded to, and that’s something more along the lines of “Which one among the following photographs is more compelling to you as the viewer?” But I certainly wouldn’t say one is better than the other. They’re both fine photographs.
Nice work, and post, as always.
Best wishes,
Mircea
B but i think it would be better underexposed, with a little detail in the sky and the outlines of the roofs not so blured by the extreme highlights.
my main problem with A is the two guys/girls sitting in the top right corner. i don’t like that they are cut in half. the picture would be better without them.
Well, both are really very, very different… With A you have to look at it more than once and think about… composition (lines, direction, imbalance) and the theme: indifference (I guess). On the other hand B is most amicable, with only one look you can see the balance, contrast, direcction… and the theme: Paris (I guess). I like more B.