Red Poppies...

[Remorhaz]

Red Poppies line the halls which mark the Rolls of Honour at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

The Flanders poppy has long been a part of Remembrance Day, the ritual that marks the Armistice of 11 November 1918, and is also increasingly being used as part of ANZAC Day observances. During the First World War, red poppies were among the first plants to spring up in the devastated battlefields of northern France and Belgium. In soldiers' folklore, the vivid red of the poppy came from the blood of their comrades soaking the ground.

Poppies adorn the panels of the Memorial's Roll of Honour, placed beside names as a small personal tribute to the memory of a particular person, or to any of the thousands of individuals commemorated there. This practice began at the interment of the Unknown Australian Soldier on 11 November 1993. As people waited to lay a single flower by his tomb in the Hall of Memory, they had to queue along the cloisters, beside the Roll of Honour. By the end of the day, hundreds of RSL poppies had been pushed into the cracks between the panels bearing the names of the fallen.

I assisted with my daughters schools multi day school excursion/camp to our nations capital city (Canberra) - looking after the children and taking lots of images for the parents and the school - here is one of my daughter alongside the Memorial's Roll of Honour festooned with the red poppies for the fallen.

Red Poppies

[Glen]

Nice image, though the right hand side of the wall seems out of focus (joke). Nice to hear of a school where they don't mind parents taking photos, rather than the paranoid overprotective attitude taken by some schools or sporting organisations(accept that there can be the occasional genuine reason such as families in hiding).

[chrisk]

A really pretty portrait. I'd like to see it cropped tighter though using the same aspect. You still get the poppies and I think you'll benefit from losing the band of OOF red on the right.

[ozimax]

Agree with above comments, and yes, I think a square crop might just work here.

[aim54x]

I vote that you need a bit more DOF so that the poppies on the RHS are recognisable....

[biggerry]

Rodney, its a nice shot and I have looked at it a couple of times, a few thoughts from my side of teh camp:

1) the blurb before hand changes the viewers impression of the image, without it one does not have much of a clue of what teh poppies and brass plaques are...

2) I can see what you are doing with the framing, however you have only made it half way to the finish line. The placement of your daughter's head on the left third is good but it is still left in no mans land imo, the viewer's attention is drawn between the red things (which are somewhat obvious as the poppies at the memorial) and your daughter's face. In my mind, there are two cropping options to improve it, both push the eyes (your daughter) into the intersection of the thirds which for this image is key to making it work, the one I prefer is the pano style one...just cause i like panos and its a bit different for portraits...

here is a quick version that find brings the model into the primary anchor point and uses the poppies and plaque as a nice BG..

as usual let me know if you want it deleted..

[biggerry]

thats right, i forgot, the other thing, is that a poppy (flower) on her shirt? now that would be a cool thing to include in the frame