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?
Well, both were shot by a talented pro so it is unlikely either would be bad. Both get highest scores for composition, so in that they are equal. The sprawled man in the street composition adds interest (drunk? dead? sober and intelligent but enjoying the middle of everyone’s sidewalk?), so it starts to move ahead. In the street scene with the ferris wheel at the end, it would not only have been nice, but great to get some detail back in the cars. But the iPhone couldn’t do it. So A pulls well ahead.
Photo A
Colors, contrasts, lighting, compositionally speaking everything is a win. Plus there is a story here. Why is the man lying down? Why are all the people walking around the man as if he were invisible? It’s an image that evokes questions in my mind, it works my imagination, it catches my eye.
In Photo B, yeah it has nice perspective but the sky is blown out, the cars and street are dark even though it is daylight. The contrasts are way too harsh. I could care less about the ferris wheel in the background because it looks disjointed and out of place. Because of the hard light it subtracts from the story on the street. It’s a car on a street with uninspired light… it falls into the “snapshot” category for me.
Photo A wins.
B. Love the composition, the symmetry, the lines, the ferris wheel just peaking over the top. makes me feel like i am waiting in line/for a parking spot and the prize is the ferris wheel, can’t wait to get there!
I know everyone has a grand reason why they like one over the other, but for me it’s simple: “A” takes me somewhere different and unfamiliar. Whereas I could stroll down many streets in the world and see something similar to “B”, the perspective of “A” just doesn’t commonly occur for me.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a city dweller who’s used to the bird’s eye view…maybe it’s something more than that.
I think A is 10x better. You have a guy laying down in a square with people walking by not even noticing him. It leads to so many questions. Is he dead? homeless? sleeping? doing a performance art piece? Who knows. While B is interesting compositionally, A is much more eye grabbing.