Portrait of my Girlfriend :)

[The_Traveler]

While I tend to agree with the idea that the framing is off, I am vehemently against the ideas that certain 'concepts' of art should be the rules by which we judge images.
These rules or concepts are abstracted from the real measures which are how people respond to the images.

If the photographer can format/frame the image to produce the effect that he/she wants to evoke, that is the only important factor- not whether it agrees with or transgresses any rule that has been sanctified by time or experience. That being said, these rules are helpful to those uncertain or inexperienced. Eventually the creative photographer may go beyond them because, for creativity, there are no rules.

In this case, the slight off-balance positioning doesn't mean anything in relation to the subject and thus, for me, it detracts.

Maybe I am thinking outside of the box and don't think everything needs to be the old fashion way. It clearly works and is balanced to me.

However much I agree with creative freedom, saying that any non-traditional effort has some credibility because it is 'outside the box' is not sensible. Most outside the box things fail because the art doesn't either make sense or appeal to anyone or intrinisically. In this situation, having the small amount of extra space on one side and the top of the head clipped isn't coherent in any sense.

IMO, it would have had much more of an impact if it had been formatted with something like this below, where the framing and the non-usual treatment reinforce each other. As it is, it looks like an accident or a mistake rather than a purposeful artistic decision.

 

[amolitor]

The whole issue of "horizontal" versus "vertical" is stupid.

Either it works or it doesn't, orientation doesn't matter. You could poll "successful" portraits and determine that 73% of successful portraits are in portrait orientation, but so what? I can show you a lot of Cartier-Bresson photos that are shot landscape that work, well, let's say they succeed and leave it at that. So fewer landscape portraits work, but I assert that when the DO work they WORK BETTER so I WIN.

The OP was clearly fixated on the eyes, that's why the head crop and the neck/chin bland wasn't even noticed. Frankly, I hardly noticed those issues, because the image is about the eyes. If you're fixated on stuff like head-chopping (as, for instance, a professional wedding photographer might legitimately be, seeing as one of the 2937828374 jobs a wedding photographer has is to NOT CHOP HEADS) than you're going to notice that, possibly to the exclusion of the overall image. That's perfectly natural, but unfortunate.

Good advice might then be to go in closer, go after the eyes. The eyes DO naturally fall into a landscape frame.

If you're going to claim that head-chopping is OK if and only if the photographer intended to do it (a point of view several comments see perilously close to espousing) then you're just an idiot. The photo either works or it does not.

This one doesn't really work, but not for stupid reasons like "it's landscape" or "the head is chopped off" although those are elements of why it doesn't work. It doesn't work because, at the end of the day, it doesn't communicate any idea very strongly. There are a number of directions it could go to strengthen one idea or another, and some of those directions involve going vertical and not head-chopping, and some of them involve not going vertical, and chopping more aggressively.

For me the main thing I dislike is the light. It seems a little flat. If this were my photo, I'd light more aggressively, push more of her into shadow, illuminate the eyes and get strong modeling on the face, and going in CLOSE.

Edited to add:

Something like this:



Edited again: I should say, I don't much like this kind of thing, it feels very pop art and ephemeral, but the point is it makes a statement and is both landscape and head-choppy.

 

[manaheim]

To clarify after Lews remarks... I want to again re-emphasize that I'm not suggesting you have to follow rules or study art to be an artist.

I'm just saying that oftentimes people argue that ignorance MAKES you an artist, and that is bull.

You may be an artist despite your ignorance, but being ignorant doesn't make you an artist.

 

[cgipson1]

To clarify after Lews remarks... I want to again re-emphasize that I'm not suggesting you have to follow rules or study art to be an artist.

I'm just saying that oftentimes people argue that ignorance MAKES you an artist, and that is bull.

You may be an artist despite your ignorance, but being ignorant doesn't make you an artist.

Damn.. you are on a roll! Again.. very well put!

 

[manaheim]

Btw... I thought that OPs framing was fine. I might have cropped it differently and I love Lew's version, but it's a quirky shot and a quirky expression so I didn't think it needed a traditional crop.

 

[kundalini]

For me the main thing I dislike is the light. It seems a little flat. If this were my photo, I'd light more aggressively, push more of her into shadow, illuminate the eyes and get strong modeling on the face, and going in CLOSE.

Yep, to me it's about the lighting that is dragging down this portrait.

BTW, I party with the campers that don't give a rat's ass about taking part of the head off. I do it often.

OP, have you tried a square crop?

 

[The_Traveler]

It's not enough to say a photo 'works'; that implies that we should take pictures with no idea of how they will come out and then see, if by some stroke of luck, they 'work'.

A picture works best when all the elements of framing, subject, color, technical execution and treatment combine to reinforce the same concept.
When one or more of these is lacking or detracting, a picture works less well.
One or more of these elements can detract so much that, even if the rest are adequately done, the picture is a failure.

Rules, the traditions of art, give hints or clues but are no substitute for creativity and understanding.

 

[amolitor]

Lew, I maintain that intent is irrelevant.

You're perfectly right that there's a lot that goes in to making a photograph, or any other act of art, "work". Photography is practically unique in that you CAN actually accomplish it by accident, without the slightest intent. It's unlikely, it's rare. If you work with intent and with understanding the rate at which you produce photographs that "work" will probably increase, no matter what you mean by "work". This doesn't mean that it you cannot get an astonishing work of art by allowing your camera to fall to the ground where a stray dog will step on the shutter release. It's really really unlikely, but it's hypothetically possible, which means we must remove intent from the equation. What if the dog precisely duplicated a well-know superb image? Would the dog's image be crap anyways, despite being identical? There's a class of weenies who will certainly argue that it is, but they make arguments that vanish into a maze of incomprehensible terminology which conceals from everyone -- especially the person making the argument -- that the argument makes no sense.

This makes a LOT of people VERY uncomfortable with photography as art, albeit fewer than in the past now that we've been struck with conceptual art and Andy Warhol. The idea that art can result from an accident, without a shred of intent, seems violently wrong even to me. I accept it only because the alternative is too awash in contradiction.

Again, I am not trying to devalue training and thought and intent or any of those things -- they are valuable, they are useful, they are powerful. I merely say that they are not the things that make the difference between Art and Not-Art.

 

[The_Traveler]

This doesn't mean that it you cannot get an astonishing work of art by allowing your camera to fall to the ground where a stray dog will step on the shutter release. It's really really unlikely, but it's hypothetically possible, which means we must remove intent from the equation.

These are two different categories.

There are things that we see that please us because of all the factors above fall into place naturally or by accident or by the intervention of our thoughts to sort out the irrelevant factors (puppies playing, rainbows, favorite places, loved ones, chance).

And there are things that are 'art' because someone, hopefully me, works at agglutinating those positive factors into a creation. That is art.

 

[jwbryson1]

Just finished this thread. Egos much?

 

[Derrel]

I have not had time to read ANY of the post that have appeared since last night. My apologies if I go over any ground already covered. I just got out of bed at 6:36 AM, and headed right in to my iMac to process a few pics in Lightroom 3.6, which another TPF member has kindly been tutoring me in. Thank you Rontanimod, for all the help! You da' man bro!

Anywayyyyyyy, I got out of bed this morning rarin' to get to the ole 'puter, 'cause I was pretty stoked about some shots I made yesterday of this cute lady whose husband hired me to shoot a nice portrait of her.

I think I hit a home run with this Lightroom filter effects set I came up with during my first cup of coffee, I've been using Lighroom only about two weeks now, but I'm pretty darn good with it,if I do say so myself!! (Back pat,back pat!). I even got a cool new watermark, which I never had before!

Anyway, back to my picture of this lady...I cannot describe,exactly, why this shot works so well, but...trust me..it just "works"! Toodles!!

 

[Alex_B]

Without really reading all the discussion going on here in detail.

- I think her face being off-centre works in general. It gives the image a casual appearence, as opposed to a more formal portrait. However, it does not perfectly work with her eyes staring hypnotically at the camera, maybe it her head was a bit turned towards the empty space on the right (eyes might still pointing towards the camera)...

- For my taste too much of her head is missing, her face appears squeezed into the ceiling.

- I do not like the plastic look generated electronically. But that is just personal taste.

 

[Alex_B]

[...]View attachment 15351

That was so evil ...

... but it made me smile I have to confess



[I do produce lots of horizontal images by the way. That is mainly landscapes to be projected on a wide screen (cinemascope or similar) or printed for a wide frame.]

 

[imagemaker46]

I like it because of the girl, it's not the way I would have shot it, but who really cares how I would have shot it. I would like to see some others that haven't been quite as overworked. You definately have a face that works well in front of a camera.

 

[cgipson1]

I like it because of the girl, it's not the way I would have shot it, but who really cares how I would have shot it. I would like to see some others that haven't been quite as overworked. You definately have a face that works well in front of a camera.

She is gorgeous.. beautiful eyes! Some other shots would be nice, indeed!