This, Gordon, is exactly the kind of criticism that I like to hear. I'm only starting in photography and I appreciate everything you have to say.
Regarding the picture of my crashed combat plane...
This is, whether you intended to do it or not, EXACTLY what I was talking about above.
Most of my good pictures are not really intentional. This one is one of those unintentionally good shots. Some days I take hundreds of pictures and only a few turn out good enough to show. I rarely take a picture and say, "That's the money shot". And if I do say that, when I get home most times I find out it's not as good as I thought.
There's so much "garbage" in there, this picture SHOULD be ruined. Bench, field box, blew the rule of thirds right out of the water...
Heck, you didn't even put the distractions far enough away to be blurred. You went ABOVE AND BEYOND to screw this one up. *lol*
BUT IT WORKS!
I agree that the photo works. I could not put it in the words you use. All I know is that I like the picture. So, I can tell that you like to break the rules if there is a good enough reason to break them. In this picture, what if I did some post processing to un-break a couple rules...
(before post processing)
(after post-processing)
- Cropped to put the eye on the lower-right third intersection.
- Blurred out the cranes in the sky.
What do you think now? Better or worse?