Thank you all...:)

@Richard
"Don't need to see the child or the grandmother - it doesn't add"
My opinion:
If you crop as you have suggested you will get a kind of "art" ....and without cropping you get a piece of life....not staged as always in my photographs.
I never crop...and I never will....that´s my attitude of taking photographs :)

I agree with @Jen-s about the non-cropping. It is a picture that says so many things precisely because of the faces. Congratulations.

@ Jen

Crop or not. I guess I would have shot it more as I described. I guess we all see things differently. But I am over life at the moment. I am trying to do more symbolism without being trite.

Thanks again for the feature.
Richard the most important thing is that we all do what WE want...and not what others seem to like :)
Therefore I really appreciate your first comment.

Agree. A certain 1x website was very good at making people shoot what they like and not what the photog likes.

I often see people's photos and often see how I would have shot the same scene. Often I would do it differently.

I will not comment on 1x now....;)

@Jens. Shop talk...you wrote, "I never crop...and I never will....that´s my attitude of taking photographs" Of course you crop. The image plane is not infinite. You select some finite area by deselecting (i.e., cropping) everything else.

I respect your desire not to further crop the captured image, but other than being obsessive (i.e., true to your Art), what's the point?

@King
"The image plane is not infinite. You select some finite area by deselecting (i.e., cropping) everything else."
Sounds for me a bit like splitting hairs ;)
And the point is to spend enough time for composing, to shot without surprising results, to except viewing through camera´s viewfinder as what it is: A showcase of what you get finally.
Maybe therefore I use a lot of different cameras...:D

Obsessiv? I think it is a good teaching tool in end...:)

Jen...I mistyped. I should have written, "The image plane is, for all practical purposes, infinite. You select some finite area by deselecting (i.e., cropping) everything else."

I agree with you that composing in the viewfinder--or even upside down on the ground glass in the case of view camera work--is a very good way to learn.

However, no photographer I have ever met in person, including my professional colleagues, has been thoroughly opposed to cropping an image.

That makes you special! ;>)

@Jens...and I take it that you deliberately placed the top of grandmother's head approximately tangent to the top edge of the frame. If I had made that mistake (imo), I wouldn't hesitate in cropping just a little bit lower.

You are right King but mistakes are reserved for amateurs like me :) Fortunately I do not have to earn my money with perfect shots...because I have none :D

"Fortunately I do not have to earn my money with perfect shots...because I have none."

That is not my impression of your work.