Betty Blue, August 26, 1977

--Lannie

Landrum,

She is a very pretty girl with a very nice smile. Your background is nicely out of focus which allows your subject to stand out. Her skin tone is very good. I like the butterfly (Hollywood) lighting. You have some nice light coming from behind her which helps separate her from the dark trees in the background.

The background is quite scenic, but as a portrait this is all about the girl. It is normal to shoot a vertical subject in a vertical format. A horizontal format often has much wasted space. You want to move in close and fill the frame with her. She has way too much head room.

Make sure you focus carefully on her eyes. Her eyes are not as sharp as they should be. Her eyes are also in shadow. You want them lit well so they can be seen clearly. You also want nice catch lights to give her eyes life. She is so far away I can't really tell how good her complexion looks, but you want to remove the dark circles under her eyes.

Avoid bright colors and bold patterns in clothing. In a portrait the subject’s face is what is most important and nothing should draw the viewer’s attention away from the face.

Do not pose your subject straight on to the camera. This is not a very feminine pose. Showing your subject’s widest areas (shoulder to shoulder or hip to hip) makes those areas appear wide. Your subject will appear thinner, more feminine and more graceful if turned at an angle to the camera. The lines you see from an angle have more apparent motion, interest and grace. It usually looks best to angle your subject somewhere around 45 degrees.

You want to compositionally balance the left and right sides of the photograph. The compositional "rule" for this suggests that you position the tip of the subject's nose in the vertical center of the photograph.

Nice shot,

Mark

"The compositional 'rule' for this suggests that you position the tip of the subject's nose in the vertical center of the photograph."

My, my, my, my, my. . . .

Mark, four masters degrees later and you still sound like a man who does not know which horse he wants to ride. I have numerous crops of her made from this shot, but this particular shot (uncropped, natural lighting) tells the story of our arrival in West Virginia from Florida on this date in 1977.

The photo is about her in that location (the deck on the back of the house) at that time, available light, etc., my having just seen for the first time--a few minutes earlier--this house (our first house, with pond and view) that she and her brother had traveled up to buy while I had finished teaching summer school at Florida. Her mother would fly the two daughters over from Arlington a few days later, after the furniture had arrived--so in one sense the photo is about the entire family and the beginning of our life as a family in West Virginia.

If I had wanted an Olan Mills style shot, I would have taken one. Even so, thanks for your time.

--Lannie

I don`t know many compositional rules, but I think the background was meant to be part of this scene. In my opinion, the orientation, and the position of the subject, makes good sense.

Btw, I have another Mabry Mill photo up, it`s called "Old man with white beard". Please take a look, Thanks, Jim.

I think this is marvelous environmental portrait. It shows a women who is smiling and so happy that it must be a pleasure just to meet her in what looks like a wonderful setting. As a portrait it really sells her. She looks like someone I would love to know. By today's standards it does look a tad soft focus, but - hey! - this is a historical record of a happy day!

As far as Mark's comments - if you look him up, he has not posted a single photograph on P.N. Maybe he never learned to use a camera. It does make you wonder why he bothered with 4 master's degrees rather than get a PhD. The only time I have known that to happen is when the professors refuse to let a candidate continue in that school, so they reward him the Masters just to get rid of him. Every time I see one of his ponderous pedantic critiques, I am reminded of the Art History professors at the college I attended. They couldn't make it as artist's so they specialized in words about art. Since they wanted their students to use these special ponderous words and phrases in their exams they tried to use as many circumlocutions as possible so as to be able to confuse and obfuscate.

Regards and happy photographing,

Jerry

Thank you, Jim and Jerry.

Jim, I love the newest version of Mabry's Mill. I was sad when you took so many photos down.

Jerry, I think you nailed this one. It was totally in the moment, and the old manual focus lens with an overcast sky made this hand-held shot a bit soft. I can see that you understand the culture of academe all too well.

--Lannie