I know the title is pretty corny, but I hope you don't think the image isn't quite so bad.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3110/2392357866_c70d2339f6.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lightchasers/2392357866/)
EXIF: 85mm; 1/80 @ f/2; ISO 200
post-processing: B&W conversion, curves, sharpening

Monochrome and kids appeal to me personally, so that's a plus point. Then I thought of subject ... then attention, what elements in the photograph direct my attention to the subject ... the rock bench he is situated .... the blurred background ... and does it simplify the focusing of the subject. No distractions which leads you away to the subject ...

IMHO, you might want to have the child perch his head on his hands like heaving a sigh, it another to portray sadness. Seeing the two eyes in a bit of sullen mood would also be considered, versus seeing only an eye. Is this candid or not? If not, then you could probably explore poses or angles if candid to express more the emotion you wanted seen.

TFS! Good luck :)

This was a candid shot - he really was sulking. I moved to the left after this, but he moved away when he saw me. Oh well...

The idea of taking picture of a sulking kid is good. The thing that caught my attention was that the front side head of the kid was as almost light as the background. It would help if you adjusted your position so that the dark background round the back of his head would fill the whole subject. Thats the tricky part with B&W you should have a very good contrast of light and dark shades, especially if your going to emphasize your subject clearly. But as you said it was a stolen shot so you had little time.

Its just my opinion. Hope it helps.:Grin:

Thanks AJ!

I've been going through critique of this photo (both here and in another forum) and I'm really just wondering what to do with the image. I actually posted an unprocessed version of the image to find out what others would do with it - I've pasted it below.

Anyway, you might be able to blame sloppy B&W conversion for your first comment (kid's face almost as light as background). I wanted to make him brighter so he would pop out a bit more, but I guess I didn't do too good a job.

As for recomposing the image, I'm washing my hands of that and blaming a fidgety subject and time constraints.

As for getting good contrast, I'm thinking now that this image wasn't very good candidate for B&W conversion. I didn't shoot it thinking I'd convert it later. As I processed it though, I thought his expression begged for black and white. The background didn't want to cooperate though. What do you think?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3224/2400969468_5f9feebd6b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lightchasers/2400969468/)