While you are waiting for me to finish the video edit on our last Puerto Rican Photo Challenge, we have a new competition for you guys to judge. This time I take a back seat and let Lee Morris and Pye Jirsa of SLR Lounge battle head to head in the streets of Old San Juan.
For this competition I decided to mix it up a bit and move to the streets of Old San Juan. If you've seen our previous Puerto Rican Photo Challenges, we normally explore areas that are less visited and often overlooked. In this shootout, I decided to explore the most popular area of the island to see what interesting backgrounds and scenes Lee and Pye could find.
So far in the series, we haven't really brought along models or focused on the overall theme or styling, but since Pye is a great portrait photographer and Lee obviously struggles with landscapes, I thought it would be fun to incorporate a local model into this shootout. We were lucky to get the lovely Yuanilie Alvarado to walk with us through the streets, and as you'll see in the upcoming competition video, she brought such a high energy to the entire shoot. Although Lee and Pye took tons of images in all sorts of different scenes, ultimately they both had to cull their images down to one single file to submit for the contest.
Below are the two submissions that we need your help judging who took the best photo?
Photo 1
Photo 2
Cast Your Vote Now!
I will reveal both photos to Pye and Lee in 24 hours as well as the final readers poll to determine who won this shootout. If you enjoy this content, make sure you subscribe to our Youtube Channel to be notified when these videos are released and also check out the Puerto Rican Photo Challenge Playlist.
Missing a 3rd option: "None"
I don't like the first because it is out of focus
I don't like the second because of the point of view
The subject sure looks in focus to me in the first. Unless you thought the focus was supposed to be the bird?
I don't think it's focus as much as it is sharpness. #2 is clearly sharper. I agree Jeremy. I don't really like either one. But, having to choose, it would be #2.
Is that a bird? I thought it was a flying cow
Agreed. The first image looks like an unprocessed raw file, so the second wins by default.
The 1st one is in focus. Granted, the 2nd one is much sharper.
Voting NONE on a choice between two images is like dividing by 0!
And the lesser of two evils (or in this case, poorest of the poor) doesn't tell you what people like. It only shows you what people hate less. These contests seem like content to boost site participation but it's unnecessary.
Choosing between the bad and the worst is a typical behavior in politics…
Yes they need to add cow option :)
The first is out of focus?
No, it's not. Shallow DOF, for sure, but the subject is clearly in focus by any reasonable standard.
The first one is shot wide open .. The second one stopped down to get toe to head in focus which makes that photo appealing, I think the second one is a well planned shot .
Hard to pick. I’d give it to the second because it shows the beauty of old San Juan while the first could be anywhere. Bothers me a little that I can see her bra, and it’s not a particularly flattering angle, but the first just seems a little generic.
I already know Pye took #2, because L&J are all about the "Environmental Portrait". Image #1 lacks the "story" that #2 carries. I love wide angle fashion shots, but I'm not liking the ultra low perspective of #2.
I like the 2nd one. It has more context and I like the point of view.
The 1st one is pretty bland compared to the 2nd. Also, the fingers and thumb and wrist are cut off. Lee must have shot that one. Pye knows better. :P
I like the edit and feel of #2 more but whenever I see a model with their hands up like that I think of Instagram and Tumblr models. It's movement but it's such an overdone pose. So I voted #1 because it's more natural in its content.
You guys saying one is sharper than the other are going mad. Here is a 100% crop of the two images. Obviously one has a greater dof because it's wider than the other but both look sharp to me.
Absolutely right. They are both in focus. When I saw people claiming that number one was out of focus I was scratching my head, huh?
This site's fans aren't the best folks sometimes.
Yes, they are both sharp, but, the 2nd one is sharper. Look at her hair for instance. These photos were taken with the same camera and lens. So, when you shoot one at f2.8 and another f5.6, given they are in focus, *more* of the subject shot with the f5.6 will be sharper, as evidenced by these crops...and even the full images.
So one isn't sharper, it just has more depth of field.
It's both. More depth of field and sharper.
It should be common knowledge when you stop down a lens (within reason), it will be sharper and bring out more detail, especially an $800 lens.
No matter how you're trying to measure "sharpness", the subject in the 2nd photo has the appearance of being sharper. That's because she is. Visually and technically.
Look at the edges of the hair. There can't be much of a focal plane difference between her nose and the top of her hair.
Before you answer bear in mind I have already bought and been through photographer 101 and others a number of times. What's the difference between sharpness and in-focus (ISO aside), to me as a viewer when I look at No 1 (without the crop) is does look out of focus, with the crop it then looks in focus. When I have my eyes tested (overdue now which may be the problem) when the glasses focus correctly everything is sharper and colours don't wash into one and other?
Yes, seen @ 100% it looks in focus, but still very soft.
To my eye, number one is a mishmash of lines and clutter. Plus it's too dark.
Number two is much better; again, to my eye. The reason for me is because it is composed in a manner that makes sense; look at the lines. It draws attention to the subject.
But at the end of the day, it's all subjective.
I voted for 1 (2 has too much tilt distortion). But, I can’t take anything Lee does seriously knowing he works on un calibrated monitors. 😏😂
Haha, I mean, you’d be shocked by the number of wildly successful photographers who don’t calibrate their monitors. I actually know more who don’t than I do. 🤷🏻♂️
Look! The requisite bird is there in shot #1. 😀
Not comparing photos.
But as far as websites go, SLR Lounge used to be my goto website for years for articles, news, reviews, etc. With their new format I just couldn't stay on board, that's why Fstoppers is my favorite now.
"Picture 2 might win because it's bigger, we can see more details and it draws more attention," is what my initial thoughts were.
With that being said, I am going to pick option 2 because the point of view, perspective is more rare and different. The post processing pops a little more than option 1 (I do like the subtlety of picture 1 though). Although I like the leading lines better in option 1, option 2 still has them. I do start to wonder if this is an ad for Fila though... because the leading lines leads to the white shoes. Have to be careful in that.
I would have maybe changed the pants to a burgundy color in the second image. It would look better against this background and compliment the shoes and her top a little more.
Well done though!
Both are awesome....I am guessing Pye took #1, great job guys.
The choices are "where's the buxom" busy background girl Vs. Attack of the 50 foot Puerto Rican. I would rather not piss off the giant, so I am forced to go with that image, however, given the circumstances generally, had there been something "to cleave to" if you get my drift, for the first image I would have gone that way. Sometimes there just is no decisive moment and apparently no "development". Either way the allegedly sultry look in photos of women these days just makes me think they are just bitches, and frankly with this "we must send a woman to the moon thing" from NASA, just makes me wish they would use Ralph Kramden's method of launch. But I digress. We need better images than this kind of stuff, images that work better and are not so damn canned. There, that's my 2 cents.
Not sure I understand. This model was definitely not plump and was actually very close to being Miss Puerto Rico for Miss Universe. She's quite tiny actually.
Comments like these make me wish we could invite all our commenters to participate in these challenges. I'd love to see the quality photos and inspiring ideas normal readers would have if they were given 1 hour to create a handful of images for a competition.
Photo 2 is far more original, photo 1 is alright, it's a decent shallow DOF photo, but it looks like a million other photos that i'd just scroll past on Insta, or Flickr or any other photography source. It's decent. No major problems with it, but no major wow factor.
Photo 2 might not be a traditional angle, a lot of people would look awful under the chin being shot from that low, but the model pulls it off fantastically here. It elongates her legs, and although she's not wearing an outfit that shows off he legs, that might be an advantage here because you should be drawn to her face, and the dark tones in her trousers help that.
Which leads me to my final point, the major criticism I have, my eye was drawn straight to her trainer, its a little island of white, surrounded by darker tones. If she was wearing darker shoes, Id have been drawn more to her face.
I wouldn't say photo 2 was amazing. But it's better than photo 1.
I look forward to the reveal!
We just filmed the reveal with Pye and Lee and Pye was a bit upset that I didn't tell the audience that I sold this shoot to them as editorial/fashion and so Pye made a point to showcase the shoes. It's funny, the night before we were randomly joking about if anyone still wears Fila shoes and then the model had them the next day! So technically Pye was trying to showcase the shoes where as Lee thought the people voting wouldn't care about the genre and would just pick the better looking image. Guess Pye got it right!
Numero dos got my vote.
Composition-wise I choose the second image, but if I had to only look at the face, I would have voted for the first image. As is I voted for the second image, but if you cropped out the door on the left in the first image, I would have voted for that.
I liked the photo 2.
I think it belongs to Lee. Firstly I thought it was Pye's photo but every time is the opposite of what I think so it's clearly Lee's photo :)