John & Amy Portrait

Lucas, your portfolio has always impressed me. Whether this is or isnt your best shot does not really matter to me right now, I'm just glad you joined the ranks of the POW owners. Yhea, yhea... I know, critiques and numbers aren't important but it must be flattering anyway. I raise my beer to you.

Well, i don't know where the POW is going on... Some time before, it was a good source of inspiration for me both technically and artistically... Now...I really don't know what to think about POW... Not only for this simple portrait but about the way pictures are selected...

 

This is a bored portrait, it need to get crooped and the subject itself is mixed with the background. I really respect the work of Lucas but i feel that this kind of portrait can be done by a kid with a Barbie-Polaroid with a couple in front of a room's curtain with a simple 100W bulb light.

 

Sorry but it doesn't add nothing intresting to me and i feel that i can't learn from it. (However, i've learned a lot from Lucas's work)

 

...

 

 

Well, if you ask me, you deserved the title, but... not for this shot...:-)

I'm quite amazed at this selection actually. I understand the reasons for picking this shot, but I also can see that another shot of yours was far more deserving than this one.

The title of what I consider your best image is - sorry for the length, but it's what you called it...:

"Here I've attempted to light this similar to George Hurrell - The 'Grand Seigneur of the Hollywood Portrait'. I feel I've managed to capture some of the same feeling as the old cinema posters and stills from the silver age of Hollywood Cinema."

That shot, to me, is a really fabulous photograph, that I would have loved to see as POW.

Back to the present image, now... Doug Burgess wrote an almost perfect description of the "ambiguity" which is the main interest I find in this image... Yet, I would have to agree with Philip Coggan about the girl. She should, in my opinion, look more noble, more serious, than she does. This quater of a beginning of a smile on her face just isn't the best possible expression to match the situation.

Besides that, my main critiques would be:

1) The background should be a lot blurer, it should have the folds, but not the vertical lines.

2) Why does the couple appear in the bottom left of the image ? It is sometimes required to shoot this way for magazine covers - leaving the space at the top for the title... Is that the explanation for this (otherwise more than strange) decision to push the models to the bottom left ? If so, please, tell us...

As it is, I think we would almost all want to crop this picture, but you probably had a specific reason to compose the image in this way...

Another serious issue - depending again on what this shot was produced for - could be the crampled sleeve of the shirt. As a pure fashion shot, the sleeve disqualifies the image immediately - at least in the given context. Less serious as a portrait, but nevertheless not a positive thing in any case...

So, if this is a moody portrait for a magazine cover or a poster, not directly connected with fashion, I find it quite good - except that the background isn't right. The light is nice. The poses are somehow interesting... The colors are very well set... If this is a full page fashion shot for a fashion spread in a magazine, it has a few flaws and needs a good crop... Since I have no details available, tough to reach a final conclusion...

Anyway, not bad... but please, someone, tell me why the other shot (the one with this long title) wasn't selected as POW, instead of this one ?

Anyway, congrats, Lucas. Not the best of your pictures, maybe, but surely not the wrong guy...Cheers...:-)

My only quibble is the hard-edged shadow on her nose. All the other shadows seem soft edged. I think a small soft diffused reflector on her side of the face just to subdue the shadow on the nose and eye a *little* might have helped.

 

Interesting portrait!

Congratulations Lucas.

I like your lighing choices here, but a couple of things could perhaps improve next time.

 

The most obvious thing to me is your man on the right, if in fact you're portraying a film poster of old then of course your hinting at story, what is this film about? Make me curious.

 

Is this infidelity? Forbidden love etc...

 

As your shot stands I think this 'romance' is missing, sure it's a nice fashion shot but your man is saying 'I'm modelling' and not 'I'm running',or, 'We're in danger'.

 

That's it! To me there's no sense of 'Danger' in this picture, you've gone for the story shot using the techniques of a fashion photographer, and arrived with a fashion shot, when I think you need more of an edge running with your pic.

 

Specifically I think your Male is too detached from his female, he's modelling (no surprises there) and not for one moment do I forget that he's modelling. Do you see my point?

 

Are you shooting with actors or models?

 

Personally I prefer actors for setups, but you shoot this way more than I do so who knows.

 

Technically I think you should have also switched to a longer lens and thrown out your curtain a little.

 

I'm always bitching about getting tighter.

 

In the end though this picture does tell me something about you, where as some of your slicker and more perfect shots are a bit too text book to appeal to me.

 

Finally, I like the close up shot of your man best.

Just personal taste.

 

Cheers CB.

I feel like it would be a little more emotional if it was cropped a bit tighter.

I do think that you grabbed the feelings of a different age.

A very interesting photo, definitely not just another portrait. It captures my attention somehow. It's the stare, the woman's pseudo-expressionless stare at the audience, the man's preoccupied stare at something else, and the out-of-place hand caressing the expressionless cheeks which are tilted ever so slightly toward the fingers! The interplay between the eyes that are supposed to look at what the fingers are touching and the face that's supposed to show pleasure from the attention. Makes me wonder what's going on there? Intriguing...

There may be a bit too much space on top, but I think the dark areas frame the photo nicely and bring the brighter spots into focus.

you could crop it, loose the warmth and get both subjects to turn to face the camera with a warm smile but that would, of course, ruin it - destroy the theatricality and turn it into a cliché. This may be what you want...

Being Chinese, it gives me a totally different sense. The picture ovetone is RED, which is the Chinese color. And pose is dramatic, and and faces are classically handsome. However, the clothing and hair style is modern Western.

I saw a lot of people discussed cropping. I totally disagree with them. The darker sides of the pictures are almost necessary to give the eyes the constrast. I just have 3 words for this picture. This is Perfect!

Great Job!

No much to add, nice to see a friend's shot as a POW!! Congrats!

I was rather surprised to see this photo as POW. Sure, it's good, but not exactly spectacular. I have to agree with the comment regarding a "lifetime award".

by the elves' "enigmatic" comments. I see nothing even close. The pose looks quite theatrical, or in other words, artificial. The man's hand is stiff and grossly out of place. His facial expression shows controlled tension, and little connection to the couple's supposed intimacy, or any other legible relationship for that matter. It looks like the photographer has certain blue print in mind, but the models haven't quite fulfilled it. Being an asian myself, the body language exhibited in this photo is by no means unfamilar to me at all, far from intriguing, let alone enigmatic.

Creative posing as far as portrait photography goes. I like the lighting. I don't find the composition all that pleasing, maybe because it appears as though the image is leaning to the left slightly. Maybe take some off the top also.

Singapore girl in a tight spot ?

Both the general crop of the image and the where the models are cut off don't work for me. The direction of the man's gaze supposedly creates direction/movement, but the way the figures are cropped and the large space above make the movement of the subjects sliding down out off the image stronger, almost hanging from the folds in the backdrop. The more I look at it the more disturbing it becomes.

 

Composition on other photos in the folder is much stronger.

I have a couple years taking pictures with regularity, altough not frequently enough. I still lack the expertise to correctly critique a photograph, but every time a new POW comes up I would expect it to be a picture that calls the attention of the average viewer, without the need to go very deep in details or get too technical to find where the merits of the picture lie.

Maybe this is a very good picture in technical aspects, but it doesn't give me much in terms of visual interest. Just my humble opinion.

Well,heck. I've been running around in Camobodia this last couple of weeks and thought I was doing pretty good at avoiding landmines...

and then I checked out what made POW.

 

I was rather surprised to check into PN and find that the elves had chosen this photo POW. Not exactly my favorite shot any more but in general I still like it well enough.

 

As for the comments about 'original' and all of that - yawn... No photo/image/art is an island unto itself, all have their influences and many attempt to emulate or pay some sort of homage to previous works. While this shot may not be ground breaking or the alpha and the omega of originality - for me it was something new- somehing I hadn't done before, and so when I got back the tranny I was stoked with it. So to that extent I am pleased with the 'originality' of it.

 

One of the intersting/vexing things about studio work is that you get exactly what you want because you set it all up. And that's the nightmare of it as well- you get exactly what you set up- I dunno about others but a lot of times I think I manage to get everything just right and then there is always something that comes up on the finished tranny that I think.."Damn.. if I had only..." - maybe that's what keeps me taking pictures.. trying to translate the shot in my head into the shot that ends up in my hands.

 

Doug Burgess and others had some real interesting comments. Thanks.

 

Jason McClendons comment was probably pretty close to my initial reaction on seeing this shot chosen. ha ha...;-)

 

Ricardo Gomez your comment cracked me up. >>>i feel that this kind of portrait can be done by a kid with a Barbie-Polaroid with a couple in front of a room's curtain with a simple 100W bulb light.<<<

 

Ok bro, were all waiting. You post your shot with the method and materials you described and if it's on the money then I'll buy the beers. If not... well then hope ya got deep pockets! ;-)

 

I hadn't given much thought to the cropping when I posted this.(If I remember it's just about full frame from the tranny). I haven't been so keen on the cropped ones that got posted. I think I'd eventually like to reshoot it. Tighten the circle oflight behind the subjects and have pull in tighter on them. I was quite partial to the folds in the backdrop - and the lines didn't bother me either really.

 

As Marc G. pointed out... I too was bummed by the wrinkled shirt on the guy ( I knew it even as I was setting it up) but there was no Iron/Steamer at hand so I just had to roll with it. Yeah that bugs me more than most things about the shot in terms of production values.

 

Lex Jenkins- Damn, all this way only to get compared to Denzel Washington. !@#!@#@!$ Bummer. ;-)

 

Godi let's see... here are some responses to your comments.

 

03 Out of place hands - the man's hand is totally out of place; and the highlight on the white long sleeve fights for attention and competes with the woman's face -- and usually wins.

 

--- I don't agree the hands out of place it works to convey some of the idea of 'possesion' and the curve of the arm helps to creat some circular path for the eye to follow around the shot quite well.

 

04 Too yellow-reddish - it is the wrong skin tone, even for asians

 

--- Could have probably lost the warm up filer here. Or correct in Pshop. But then after I looked at it a while - it didn't kill the shot for me either. Like anything it was an attempt.

 

05 Too contrived - the pose is too contrived and too stiff

 

--- Actually the stiffness of the pose was something I messed with on several others shots that day. One reason why I thought it worked here is older portaits from back in the day are stiff. Ya know the whole neck clamp deal from using slow glass etc.. So I thought that the stiffness wasn't really a drawback but helped to convey that nostalgic and formal pose sense. The hand on the face somehow was an attempt to show some of the 'wanting' or maybe the desire to possess or something. Not a fully thought out idea/execution - just some stabs in the direction- not completey on mark but not radically far wide either -more maybelike a rough sketch to prepare for a final illustration.

 

06 Why the glasses if these were not paying portrait clients? I do not think it is for an eyewear ad, or is it?

 

--- This was one where threw in the glasses in some of the shots to see if it would change/improve anything. Had I had a pair of round wire-rim glasses I'd have gotten more the 'vinage' feel I was trying for.

 

Anyhow- thanks for all the comments and critiques of this shot. I'll try to check this out again before I head back to Cambodia.

 

cheers, Luc

 

 

After studying this photo for a while...I have to ask your intent and purpose in making this pic? It doesn't matter what we all think...does this print exactly describe your purpose or were you just messing around with what you thought would be a different and interesting shot?

 

If your intent was to make the couple seem disjoint and troubled, you've hit your target...congratulations!

This one is mediocre, but at least the editors selected one from a great photographer. There are so many in the photographer's portfolio, though, that are so much better-- both in composition and technical achievement. The POW shot begs for exposition in black and white-- the sepia tone further weakens a photo with little visual interest.

Sorry, Lucas, but I also disagree with the POW choice. (I feel like I say this almost every week now.) This is the waekest picture in your online portfolio. It looks too amateurish to be POW. Any of your other photos are much more deserving.

The portrait is original, it's not a typical boring portrait of people. It shows features of their faces of that being soft and smooth. The yellow skin tone is brought out nicely and contrasted well with the red background.The red background is original in that it shows ripples in the curtain and vertical lines in the fabric to direct it back to the subject. Very nice lighting and shade to make it comfortable and pleasing to look at.

Count me among those left cold and puzzled at this POW selection. It looks as if the maker got some acquaintances to pose. It's competently lit, but for me has no impact at all. Those vertical stripes on the background draw my attention away from the figures. It's not a balanced composition...why so much room on the right? Guess that's where he's looking. Anyway, it's a nice picture, but Photo of the Week? A very disappointing and curious choice.

I also like others in Lucas's portfolio and feel this one is not bad but has some flaws.

I find the shadow on the girl's nose to be absolutely lit wrong by everything I know and also don't like the heavy shadowing on her face on the left. The background is weak to me and there is too much space above their heads.

I do like the stagelike drama of the pose and although it looks a little stiff - it does have a nice theatrical tension.

Kind of creepy. Hints of domination and abuse.

Kind of creepy. Hints of domination and abuse.

Well then - what's not to like?