Hey, I know exactly what you're talking about. That's what I experienced during my last medieval event shoot. I still haven't taken the slides to the lab so I don't know the result, but I was shooting the "shoot a lot and hope for the best" style LOL. We'll see what comes out of it ;-)
Thanks Matej for you comments and I agree whole heartedly with all you have said but let me explain why none of that could be achieved; The kids were on a moving lorry, OK it was moving only a few mph but so much was happening so fast and the time I took a shot and then the camera downloaded to the memory card then a new picture was in front of me. I also had balloons to content with please people walking past with the procession and then there were people handing things out...so as you can imagine I did not have time to set shots up it was just a matter of shoot and hope for the best!
If you were going for the Vulcan sign then I guess this will do, but as a portrait (or a double portrait), there's some room for improvement.
To enhance the element of friendship, I think it would have been desirable to see the other kid's eyes. As it is, it seems that the kid on the right is looking past the kid on the left, not at him. Also, the expression of the left kid isn't a very amused one - they don't seem to be having fun together, and indeed they don't seem to be having fun each by himself either.
The lighting is such that kid's white t-shirt draws more attention than the kid's face, which is in shadow. The hand obstructing his mouth causes the viewer to see even less of his face. A shallower DOF could have been used to isolate the kid's head from the busy surroundings.
Going for a closer shot would have enabled the viewer to establish a better contact with the child, and it would have also eliminated the red stick and all those bits of hands and feet at the bottom.
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{K:24381} 7/20/2003