Even Ralph Lauren's Photographers have rough days.

[2WheelPhoto]

Discuss.

Ralph Lauren Collection Fall 2012 | Facebook

 

[2WheelPhoto]

And there's more than the obvious lady standing on her head

 

[Forkie]

I'd have to agree with you there. There are about 3 shots in that set that I thought were great. The rest were pretty "meh". Flat lighting to the point where some look like the model has been cut and pasted, busy backgrounds, uninspired poses.

The first one in the set is awful. Like you said, the lady standing on the model's head, the accidentally left open curtain frame right, flat lighting (on-camera flash?), the standing on a chair pose (WTF?!?!?!?!).

The two outdoor shots with the car are just as bad. No fill lighting to speak of whatsoever, overexposed highlights, dog in shadow, crooked horizons, I could go on.

Makes me wonder where I'm going wrong to be photographing oven control knobs and fridge drawers all day long.

 

[Derrel]

What happened to her legs? Oh, that's right...she is 8'9" tall. Wow...talk about another shot for the "Photoshop Fail" web sites! An utterly ridiculous photo there!

 

[Forkie]

Also, just noticed in that first one she's actually standing on a black plate on the chair. They couldn't even hide the props properly. Shoddy. Shoddy work.

 

[tirediron]

Didn't you hear? Ralph's been bought out by Best Buy!

 

[Forkie]

Didn't you hear? Ralph's been bought out by Best Buy!

I'll forward him a link to my Craiglist advert!!!!*



















*Just to make it absolutely clear, I don't have a Craiglist advert. This statement was written purely for comical purposes. You may LOL freely.

 

[mjhoward]

I'm going to assume their account got hacked.... yea... their account got hacked.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

I'm going to assume their account got hacked.... yea... their account got hacked.

Perhaps Calvin Klein, Coach, Guess, or Tommy Hilfiger photographers are responsible for the mayhem

 

[amolitor]

There's a number of posing tricks going on here which make her appear taller than she is, the idea is obviously to emphasize the long and lean look.

She is not absurdly out of proportion, however. Part of her hair is blending with the painting, which makes her head appear smaller than it is, and she's obviously wearing heels. The drape of the clothing and the position of her hand make you think her waist is much higher than it is.

The photo does read rather oddly, if it requires careful inspection to determine that it's not a photoshop disaster, you're failed. It does get a little bit of the sumptuous paternalism that Ralph Lauren loves, though. I would have thought up a better way to get her elbows on the mantel, or scrubbed the whole idea, myself.

The clothing is beautifully lit. That outfit looks like sex made entirely out of thousand dollar bills, shredded, dyed red, and turned in to one-million-thread-count velvet.

ETA: Absolutely no reason to think it's NOT a composite, anyways. These often are.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

There's a number of posing tricks going on here which make her appear taller than she is, the idea is obviously to emphasize the long and lean look.

She is not absurdly out of proportion, however. Part of her hair is blending with the painting, which makes her head appear smaller than it is, and she's obviously wearing heels. The drape of the clothing and the position of her hand make you think her waist is much higher than it is.

The photo does read rather oddly, if it requires careful inspection to determine that it's not a photoshop disaster, you're failed. It does get a little bit of the sumptuous paternalism that Ralph Lauren loves, though. I would have thought up a better way to get her elbows on the mantel, or scrubbed the whole idea, myself.

The clothing is beautifully lit. That outfit looks like sex made entirely out of thousand dollar bills, shredded, dyed red, and turned in to one-million-thread-count velvet.

ETA: Absolutely no reason to think it's NOT a composite, anyways. These often are.

I agree, but the overall pic is so horrid the outfit screams "don't buy me"

 

[Derrel]

There's a number of posing tricks going on here which make her appear taller than she is, the idea is obviously to emphasize the long and lean look.

She is not absurdly out of proportion, however. Part of her hair is blending with the painting, which makes her head appear smaller than it is, and she's obviously wearing heels. The drape of the clothing and the position of her hand make you think her waist is much higher than it is.

The photo does read rather oddly, if it requires careful inspection to determine that it's not a photoshop disaster, you're failed. It does get a little bit of the sumptuous paternalism that Ralph Lauren loves, though. I would have thought up a better way to get her elbows on the mantel, or scrubbed the whole idea, myself.

The clothing is beautifully lit. That outfit looks like sex made entirely out of thousand dollar bills, shredded, dyed red, and turned in to one-million-thread-count velvet.

ETA: Absolutely no reason to think it's NOT a composite, anyways. These often are.

Hey...I happen to have an old hard drive full of rejects and second rate shots...I bet you'd like to buy it!!!!

 

[amolitor]

Two points worth noting:

- it got eyes on the page, didn't it? It's clearly outre on purpose, and it works.
- it's got some handy tricks if you ever want to create that kind of long line, which is pretty common in fashion work. It's a photograph worth studying.

The fact that it is not, by your standards or by mine, a very "good" photograph hardly matters, here.

 

[Forkie]

It kind of does, though. When you consider how hard some people work and the quality of photography you can see from amateurs or people tryng to break into the business and never get any kind of break, and then you see such poor composition and photographer-ship (not a word, I know) from a photographer commisioned by one of the top designer brands in the world.

It really makes me wonder why we bother. Why not just get a camera from Best Buy and put yourself on Craiglist/Gumtree/Facebook if you can get away with stuff like this for Ralph Lauren?

We're not talking about how many clicks it gets or how to create long legs, we're talking about overall composition and this shot (woman standing on chair) is objectively poor.


Unless, of course, we can work out some reason for it to be shot in this way on purpose. In that case, it could potentially be genius.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

yeah unfortunately thats why many of my professors say photography is more about the successful business end than the pics delivered.