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?
A. No question because it makes the viewer ask a question. A moment is captured in A.
B – Nice lines. Beats out A (those pour people in A who got decapitated i weep for them).
Love both of ’em. But if I had to pick one…B for sure. I like to be drawn into a photo, and B does that very well. I’m drawn to the ‘wheel in the back, but not without seeing everything along the way. A is cool too…I like the different patterns.
A! No doubt. Reason : Human factor… something to read in it.. like many have said. Sorry but B is kind of pretty ordinary. Ordinary composition.. at least it could have been taken from ground level… from the web picture here, exposure pretty flat too.
Personally, I am not into landscape if there is no human inside the frame to give a scale or a life to the pic. I am also not a really big fan of iPhone pics. I guess my 365 self-portraits project is changing my vision of photography for good! 🙂
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cafemoka/
I am voting for B. Both have merits, as many have noted above. A begs to question what has happened, which brings depth to visually rather flat image. B seems at first more static and irrelevant, but for me it too raises questions. Feels like a sci-fi scene with something huge and mysterious only partly visible in the background. B has more punch in the light, which ends up being decisive for me.