A Portrait of Loss

[OrionsByte]

I bet you thought this was going to be a sad thread...



Comments and critique are welcome as always! PLEASE!

Technical stuff:
24mm f/8 1/200 ISO 400
SB-910 in 24" softbox about 8' camera left at 1/4 power to simulate window light
SB-600 bare w/ TN-1 gel bouncing off the wall to camera right at 1/4 power to simulate lamp light

Self-critique:
I really wish I hadn't shot it so tight (the original SOOC actually cut off right at the tip of my toes, so I 'shopped in a little extra room at the bottom).​

 

[Derrel]

Awesome! Good for you!

 

[Alexandtheng]

love the lighting, really crisp!

and huge congrats on the weight loss!

 

[pjaye]

Way to go!!

 

[DiskoJoe]

Go non-scale victory. Congrats sir!

 

[mishele]

You look amazing!!! Congrats to you on your hard work!!

 

[sashbar]

Congrats, very well done! Must be a great feeling.

As for the image - it is not tight, quite opposite - the composition is loose: a lot of stuff around that one does not want to see - busy background, unparallel lines, untidy stuff on the floor etc.. ( I really do not want to know what color are your socks) ..a lot of things that have nothing to do with the theme. ( I am just writing it since you have specifically asked for a C&C )

That's what I would call tight enough:

 

[pgriz]

Congrats on evicting that "other guy" - must be a great feeling not to have to share the space. :hail:

 

[OrionsByte]

Congrats, very well done! Must be a great feeling.

As for the image - it is not tight, quite opposite - the composition is loose: a lot of stuff around that one does not want to see - busy background, unparallel lines, untidy stuff on the floor etc.. ( I really do not want to know what color are your socks) ..a lot of things that have nothing to do with the theme. ( I am just writing it since you have specifically asked for a C&C )

That's what I would call tight enough:

View attachment 61392

Thanks Sashbar, I appreciate the feedback.

I guess what I was trying to do with the wide shot was include a bit more "story." The mess on the floor is made up of more pants that are now too big for me (and there were several pairs more I didn't bother plopping down there). So while I could have gone with a plain background and shot something like every other oh-look-I-lost-weight-and-my-pants-are-too-big photo out there, I chose to include some more context.

So, everything in the photo is deliberate, from the choice of t-shirt, to the empty hangers in the closet, to the Seahawks hat on the shelf (which has nothing to do with weight loss but a lot to do with me ). I planned it out in my head for a week before I had a chance to shoot it.

That doesn't mean it works, or that it was the right way to shoot it, but it was, in fact, deliberate.

Can I get some other opinions along those lines? Is there too much distracting information in the shot, or does it help tell the story? Is the lighting too subtle, making it look overly casual?

 

[OrionsByte]

This was the original concept for the shot, and the reason I included all the extra stuff like the mess on the floor. I just didn't like it as much as I thought, so I ended up choosing the pose in the OP, which really doesn't connect to the extraneous stuff anymore. Does this shot make more sense with the background?

 

[sashbar]

I got the empty hangers and the t-shirt, that is why it is all in my crop. As for the cloth on the floor - we can not possibly know what size it is, I can not even tell if it is the men's or women's garment, so the story is lost here for me. I think it is almost always better to concentrate on one or two details that gives you the story and put them in the frame so that your eye is drawn to it. If you look at my edit, you will notice that there are two main points of interest - the gap between the jeans and you body and the "I love my bike" sign. Both are placed at 1/3 of the frame so are easy to attract attention. Your body here is divided by 1/3s so the composition is balanced. You see the gap, you see the "bike",you get the idea. THEN you see the empty hangers. Nothing distracts you here. With your crop it all becomes small and a bit confusing regarding the lines of sight - the "bike" becomes less visible, you are distracted by the wardrobe doors, start thinking why these doors are angled and when they will fall off. And then you see the cloth on the floor and think that she had to run in a hurry. You know what I mean? If there is too much in the frame it is easy to loose the real story.
Anyway, the best and only obvious way to tell this story would be to have an old picture of you on the wall and stand besides, I know, it is a horrible cliche, but this is a cliche that works 100%.

that is, of course, how I see it. You may see it differently.

PS The second shot, if you asked me what happened, I would probably say that you were cycling with a friend, it started raining, you got wet and he gave you his jeans. Simply because this would be a more common story than the one about a man who lost so much weight.