Eric Smith Portrait

Please critique this portrait!

 

Let me know what you like or don't like about it

in detail.

 

I always envision it as part of an editorial on health for men..

or males moking habits... or perhaps some kind of ad.

 

I'd like to know what anyone thinks about being influenced in

their photographic/artistic work by advertising images that

bombard us everyday. Positive? Negative? Makes no difference?

 

Lucas Griego

I really like the warmth of colour and the composition, also depth of field etc. If anything makes it feel "commercial" as you said, I think it might be the fact that he is looking away and down so that you get little feeling from his eyes, and begin to focus on the clothing/smoking. I do think it's a great photo though.

Advertising influence depends on your degree of gullibility or cynicism. Self awareness and recognition of the medium are critical to the "success" or failure of advertising. Some of the brightest minds working today are doing their damndest to sell you shit you don't need. I employ several devices to effect a disconnect between their desires and my recognition, not all of which are effective 100% of the time. 99% of the time one of my filtering devices catches the con, but much of the time I comply with the "sale" and conscript the "product" to empower my own sales pitch, which is sort of what you are doing with this image. The mixed light sources, the blown out background and the tight crop are all current catalog, editorial and advertising techniques. It's now up to you to either conscript these attributes to put money in your pocket, succumb to a trend in your personal work, or subvert this message by finding a way to expose the psychological devices embedded in this type of imagery and subvert them to your own devices... t

I like the warm feeling. Very nice use of the narrow depth of field

Here's the addendum I intended and attempted to post last night, when the server locked up on me:

By the way, it's a good image. He's smoking, but doesn't seem too happy about it. That he's smoked the cig right down to the butt lends authenticity to the image. I would like to see the crop either loose enough to show the entire shape of his head, or tighter to exclude the background above and behind his head (little bright blobs that distract)... t

Thanks for all the critiques so far...

yeah ya know.. right before I posted it I thought

about the crop and the little spot behind his neck distracted me too... so will crop that.

 

Luc

Very nice DOF and lighting is wonderful.

The subject's name is almost the same as mine and is it s nice pic!