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 by a country mile. Interesting POV, interesting lines, interesting stuff happening (people lying down), nice little splash of colour. No contest.
A, definitely. Quite apart from the unexpectedness of bloke laying on the ground, the composition itself does that magic eye/brain thing that gives you a bit of a buzz for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on.
I think A is better. It gives you something to think about. B is an effective shot in terms of converging lines but it leaves you in the white “nothingness” while shot A leaves you with a question and a potential story 🙂
Love your “Which one is better?” posts. It’s so interesting to read all the comments as well as wondering what went on in your mind–both when you took the photos and when you studied them later.
My vote goes to A. Both photos strongly make use of intersecting/converging lines, but for me A is more interesting visually (textures, small touches of color) and the presence of people serves to make it more stimulating for my imagination. Initially I just gave B a few seconds glance and returned to A. However, with subsequent looks, what did catch my attention and give me a bit of pleasure was that in B the various elements and tonal variations give it the look of an abstract painting. But primarily it’s also very evocative of photos taken decades ago, in WWII for instance. Nostalgia does have its uses. Earlier, Mark made the comment–“Photo B makes me think of Paris in a time I’ve never seen and will never know.” Photo A has a more modern, journalistic look to it–they look like they were taken in different eras.
Brent Amaker and the Rodeo competition–when I voted for B I knew nothing about the band. However, since then I’ve done some reading on them and watched a couple of their videos. While I still prefer B, I would grudgingly say that with the seductively reclining woman in the foreground, A goes a little further in depicting the image of the band that they want to project. I consider A to be Chase Jarvis’s G-Rated photo of an X-Rated band. What-a-hoot–really wish I could have seen the shoot “Live”!
I prefer A because of the minimalism and there is more of a mystery or a story in it. B is good because of the curved vs. linear juxtaposition but doesn’t make me wonder and the scene is a bit busy for me.