Ok ... I'm game, tear this one to bits!
😀
First, I disagree entirely with Hsq's critique (well he's right about the main subject, but wrong about everything else - for example, the people aren't competing because of selective focus). No idea what he's smoking...!
OK... I don't usually critique on line because (a) some people can be sensitive and (b) it takes a lot of words to do it properly.
When I look at a photograph, I'm primarily interested in what it's telling me. Technical shortcomings are only problematic if they detract from the image: would it be a better photograph without _____? If the answer is "it makes no difference", then it's not a fault. So, a blown highlight or noise may or may not be a fault.
That said, on to your photograph...
I like it. It's a good image, and I can't fault the composition. At this size, there are no technical issues - it's well exposed, sharp and the plane of focus is sensibly placed.
Photographs of this type have a job to do: to tell a story. And this photograph tells its story well. We are obviously in a dressing room, perhaps of a theatre. The primary interaction - and where the focus is deliberately placed, emphasising this for the viewer - is between the woman in the foreground and someone outside the frame: the eyes tell us that. That makes the photograph interesting by making the viewer part of the narrative - we want to know what she's being asked to do. The person in the background also intrigues: we see her reaching - but for what? The photographer has correctly used selective focus to render this second woman out of focus - doing so makes her of secondary importance to the woman in the foreground. So, we have an overall narrative that revolves around a dressing room, with a main plot and a sub-plot, involving incomplete actions outside the frame (looking and reaching) that intrigue us, the viewer.
Every object in the photograph supports this narrative, as does the tonality and composition. Everything that the photographer presents to us here plays a role - the supporting cast if you will (ha ha - see what I did there
🙂 ) - and does it well: there are no distractions, no visual dissonance.
That said, if were being picky, the white shirt of the background woman would be better toned down a bit; and there are a couple shirts slap back in the middle that are a bit too bright. Both draw the eye too forcibly. The composition in this image uses a circular dynamic, whereby the eye travels along the women's bodies, the top rail of clothes and the cuffs in the lower rail, resting on points of interest (the face in the foreground (primary point), the second woman's torso (secondary point) and assorted other areas such as the cuffs in the lower rail and the pale dresses in the upper clothing rail (tertiary points), and the too-bright shirts break this circle. Darkening the areas mentioned slightly would (a) ensure that the two women don't compete visually (the second woman must be distinctly visually secondary) and (b) the eye isn't pulled out of the circle (the viewer should be seduced to leave the circle, not forced!). But don't darken too much: a common fault is to remove or tone down everything other than the main subject(s), and that makes for a very dull photograph - a picture should (usually) contain detail for us to enjoy, yet which doesn't compete with the main subject(s).
So, full marks Keith. You've managed to make the everyday interesting - which is one of the things photography is especially good at, but which photographers often fail to do. More importantly perhaps, I've enjoyed this photograph - despite it not being the kind of photograph I'd take personally! If photographed badly, scenes like this are exceptionally boring to look that, and it takes a good eye and skill to pull it off. Anyone can take an interesting photograph of an interesting scene...
Right - lunch!
