Hi Tash,
Of all the different genres in photography, documentary photography is the one that I am most passionate about. A lot of people are quite content to romanticise the world but I would rather tell it like it is.
The challenge with any documentary photograph is to make the imagery engaging. If you are working in its purest level you cannot setup a photograph, and if you cannot manipulate the images either.
Therefore to make an image strong you really do need to work hard to make the most of the lighting, composition and “the moment”. Often it also means going beyond the obvious to look for the back-stories, the juxtapositions or any additional information that might add to a story.
I think it is fair to say that the one component of this image that is engaging are the flowers and I also feel there is an interesting colour harmony against this guys blue shirt. After looking at the photograph for five seconds though, I lose inerest.
How do we make the photograph more interesting? This is a situations where it would have helped to follow this guy and find out where he was going and where he began his journey.
Imagine finding the little shed where they sort all these flowers prior to taking them to market? My guess is you would find several people like this guy, loading bicycles ready to head off down the road. Imagine the colour in that situation!
If I could I would also be looking to find out where this guy actually goes with the flowers, and who buys them.
The other option with this photograph would simply be to have at least one other person or one other story element occurring in the background.
The secret to any good documentary photograph is to get people asking questions about what they are looking at, but to do that you need to give them enough information to get them asking those questions.
Hope this is a help, and good luck with the career… it is one of the most difficult genres to make a living in nowadays… but it can also be one of the most rewarding.
Cheers,
Anthony.