I Feel Like my Group Shots Always Suck...

D-B-J · Mar 12, 2014

Thoughts? This was a quick shot for Greek Council. Ambient light, no posing, etc. I'm just never a fan of them. How do I improve?

Best,
Jake

Gavjenks · Mar 12, 2014

Holy magenta tinted batman! Make this way the hell more green first of all.

Otherwise, I don't think this is bad at all. Would it have benefited from external lighting? Sure. But this is okay. The shape is interesting, you can see everyone, etc.

Oh do get the backpacks out of the shot, though.

KmH · Mar 12, 2014

Don't worry so much about the quality when being sucked into making quick shots.

Improve by being more aware of light quality, direction, and how to pose groups.

They all have 'raccoon eyes'. Even using the pop-up flash at reduced power can help with light quality and direction.

Derrel · Mar 12, 2014

That's a 29-person group if my headcount is correct. Your head spacing is not too bad, not great, but not too bad really. I think the biggest issue is that the focal length looks a little too short, which causes the head sizes to be a bit smaller on the girls who are only a few feet farther away...it would look better with a longer lens, shot from much farther away.

But the real issue is that they are packing in there like sardines in a tin...the posing area is VERY small, very cramped, for 29 people. What's causing a bit of a problem is the guy with the baseball cap, sitting there on his jacket, and with his legs overlapping the gal to his left...HE is causing the entire left hand side to fracture off.

This would be a tough location, but I would probably have let the group go wider, and looser. You have EIGHT men on the left, and close, then 21 other people all crammed in to about the same width...there's just a massive log-jam of people from the center to the right...I count 18 heads in an area as wide as the eight guys on the left take up.

The three guys in the front are also taking up a LOT of prime real estate by being square-shouldered, and the reddish jacket in the lower left corner on the step...THAT spot could have had somebody seated.

I might have had five people KNEELING, in the front row, made the second row all angled to the right, but heads looking ahead, put a guy on the step lower left, had a guy stand to the far, far left of that step, and in that way, give 10 people in the back cluster much more presence.

Anyway...this kind of a shot is something that not many people do. But the issue really is not enough space, and a few posing decisions, like the THREE guys in the front that KILLS the shot. Having just three men in the front ruins the shot, basically... it forces your hand. You need to ANGLE the bodies to get more people in a small space; Everybody is broad-shouldered, which is very "static and dull" and even worse, makes the 29 people appear (well, not just appear, the ARE) more-crowded into too small a space. I used to work at a portrait studio, and had to shoot 15, to 25-person groups three to five times a week. It's kind of a pain in the butt. But there are "methods", and the biggest one is getting some body angle for tighter spacing/more efficient use of the actual space available.

D-B-J · Mar 12, 2014

Wow, thanks for all the quick responses. I should add the caveats that they wanted this particular location, and this day. They have always had their photographs taken here. It was definitely a quick snapshot more than a posed proper photo, but your help will be invaluable when I take another one.

Best,
Jake

The_Traveler · Mar 12, 2014

fixed the magenta and a little color fiddling and it looks OK.

D-B-J · Mar 12, 2014

The_Traveler said:
fixed the magenta and a little color fiddling and it looks OK.

View attachment 68458

I should add that the little magenta tint was intentional. I added a vintage processing, and the magenta came a touch strong.

Best,
Jake

The_Traveler · Mar 12, 2014

Oh....:smileys::smileys:

what a fool am I.

vintagesnaps · Mar 12, 2014

The edit looks much better - the original doesn't seem to have a vintage look, it looks like the exposure or something was off. What about using the house as the background instead of the white apparently hazy/overcast sky. Even if they wanted the photo at this location you could think about and adjust the vantage point to show less sky and so that the boys in blue aren't dominating the picture.