[MulaPhoto]

Once a month in our little town we have an Artisan Fayre, this month the local ladies were present to give a demonstration of Lace making

Camera Cannon 300D
ISO 400
Exposure 1/500 at f11

Would appreciate C&C
John

[wulinka]

Beautiful!

Is this taken outside, in daylight?

There is a lot of detail in your shot, and it is tack sharp! I like the mild colors and the composition,
except for the top edge, where I would probably crop a little to clean up the clutter.

Uli

something like this:

[Irma]

I like very much your composition, and the colors are very nice.

As I see that the subject is in this case the lace, I would suggest a bit more contrast to bright up the whites.

It could be also a good candidate for a bw treatment with a blue filter so the orange of the paper/cloth she is working on gets darker, and the natural contrast goes in favor of the lace. Problem here is the hands that might get darker too, but with a mask or selective colors you might get them a bit lighter.

[MulaPhoto]

As per Irma suggestion, I have converted this image to B&W, I used the Power Retouche plug in "Black and White Studio" to do the conversion, with a blue filter and film simulation of T400. The using PWL (Paint with light), I lightened the hands and darkened the white material to bring out the detail.
C&C would be appreciated

Regards
John

[Irma]

Yes, I liked it very much and you have very nice contrast here. Lots of detail in the whites.
I think the bw treatment focus more your attention to the lace and hands, and you still have lots of the environment without been distracting.

[Zig]

Interesting. I think the activity is so vibrant that it does need colour. If the whites are not quite white enough maybe remember 2 things: with a lot of white, the camera will want to compensate for exposure, so you might want to add a stop of exposure compensation before hand: metering first, would make sure the post-processing stage would be easier too. Secondly, for this shot, if you use the dodge tool set for highlights at around 3%, this will bring up the whites.
I'm not sure about the BW with blue filtration UNLESS it is your intent to bring out the gnarled hands...and this could distract from the lace(unless of course this is your intent): blue filtration with BW is just right for rugged male portaits, "street" folks and where you want to bring out wrinkles. Orange filtration is more the thing for "femaleness", traditionally...
Either way, this is such a lovely shot and subject: cropping out the wrist bangle and the bottom would keep interest on the lace-work. I've done a quick version as an example, if you don't mind:

[Zig]

Ooops, forgot: I also dodged the whites and raised saturation a little.

[Irma]

Nice try in color Zig. I always have admire your technique to bring out the colors.

Still I like much better the bw version. The lace and tools she uses contrast very well... There is a bit of inconvenience with he hands indeed, if you don't want to show the texture of the skin, but I still like it as it is... they are working hands after all....

Anyway, here is where the author of the picture takes the decision what he hands to show the activity or the lace itself.

About the cropping... I don't agree with yours. The hands look chopped off, the little bit of the bracelets and the sleeve gives a lot to the story, to the environment. The original crop looks to me more natural.

[Zig]

OK Irma! I think it's great that the same shot can be developed and viewed in so many different ways: as a "composition", as a photojournalistic document, as an encapsulation of the subject's character, social comment, etc;

[wulinka]

Zig, love the color! very Spanish!

Uli

[nia]

Once again hi John, I haven't seen this picture before, now when I searched I noticed. What a wonderful one! I loved this picture. Composition is great. And yes, I should say this too, reminded my grandmother, she was so good about this too. Thank you, it was so nice.

Have a nice day,
with my love,
nia