Girl in Chair

[Patrice]

Our school doesn't have a budget for that. Boring girls in chairs are the best we get ^-^

So why post and ask for comments when you know the photos don't have much going for them?

 

[ceeboy14]

Gee, so maybe he could learn something rather than get bashed for trying. It was not a great shot to work with, and in the future I suspect he will experiment with some different lighting, especially in getting the actress to keep her chin down a bit to avoid harsh shadows. I'm not much of a people photographer, nor theatrical as I know the pitfalls of colored gels, the harshness of a fresnel light, etc.

However, there was a great teaching moment here lost on this young man. There are photoshop tools (and I'm still learning most of them) that allow a bit of body sculpting (those enormously fat legs), color correction (the chair), color replacement or matching, color mixing (to ease the chin shadows), and some more directed lighting, clean-up, etc (background, floor). What I've done is take his failure (for lack of knowing how to do better) and learned how to work with a bad image, if for nothing else to learn.

Perhaps what the OP should have asked for was, "How can I make this a better shot - our school has a limited budget and for the most part, while we have great actors and actresses, we have very little for sets, costumes, etc." Perhaps this group could have been a little more gentle and whacked him a bit around with a foam brush and not a baseball bat.

It can never be a great shot, but for this young lady, perhaps it could have been a shot she would keep.

 

[texkam]

So is there a good way to do theatrical photography, or is it just a waste of time?

Theatrical photography, like sports photography or photojournalism, is something different than portrait photography where you have the benefit of controlling light and pose the way you want. Your goal is to simply capture moments as best you can. Since the set up is less than desirable, your best bet is to look for the best existing light and best poses where and when you find them and try to put yourself in the best position to capture them. You must find something that makes an interesting image in other ways.

 

[SCraig]

.... Perhaps what the OP should have asked for was, "How can I make this a better shot - our school has a limited budget and for the most part, while we have great actors and actresses, we have very little for sets, costumes, etc." Perhaps this group could have been a little more gentle and whacked him a bit around with a foam brush and not a baseball bat.

That's not what he asked though, he asked "What do you think" so I told him. The old adage "Don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer comes to mind".

 

[pixmedic5 4]

.... Perhaps what the OP should have asked for was, "How can I make this a better shot - our school has a limited budget and for the most part, while we have great actors and actresses, we have very little for sets, costumes, etc." Perhaps this group could have been a little more gentle and whacked him a bit around with a foam brush and not a baseball bat.

That's not what he asked though, he asked "What do you think" so I told him. The old adage "Don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer comes to mind".

this is another age old debate...giving critique -vs- receiving critique.
personally, I thought SCraigs C&C was spot on, was not rude at all, gave reasons for the negative critique, AND stated what was positive about the image. it was much better than the usual "its crap, delete it" we often see. could it have been a LITTLE more in depth with explanations? sure, but we cant expect people to write a 6 page dissertation on someones photo. I think this was good C&C meant to help the OP and should be received as such. As for how to make it a better shot, i actually think SCraig even covered that a bit mentioning the vantage point, background, lighting, and centered subject. not terribly specific obviously, but concise and to the point.

 

[DGMPhotography]

Thanks for the tips!