What is the feeling you get from this picture

[BoblyBill]

This was my first effort in trying to reflect an emotion... I was trying to reflect tempation... But I feel it doen't really do that. I feel it's not a very good reflection of the emotion... How do you do that in a pic?

 

[THORHAMMER]

its not bad, but its too obvious. noone drinks a glass like that out in an open field.

get him sitting at a table with others that are drinking and hes the only one without a glass, have the light coming down just on him mostly... that will make people think

 

[blooper]

im not sure what the statement is with this picture.
the subject looks underaged because hes wearing a t shirt. the lunch table he is sitting on doesnt make it any better. im guessing it was shot at school during lunch or something like that because the light is harsh. if thats the case, youre not supposed to have alchohol on campus tsk tsk tsk. thats just the few things that bother me about this image.

other than the subject at hand. the cropping doesnt seem right. kinda like you couldnt decide whether you wanted a close crop or a wide shot of the area. if you notice, the very tip of his head is clipped and the hand that holds the glass is dangerously close to the edge of the crop. the angle doenst seem like you put much thought in it either. like you happen to walk by at the rihgt moment to catch a guy praying.

what kind of emotion were you trying to reflect?
if you were trying to show enlightenment, show more of this body in a relaxed postion.
if you wanted to show passion for his religion, maybe focus on his facial expression. show some type of tension, like a clenched fist holding his rosary beads.

i would suggest looking up pictures and examples of waht you wanted to accomplish and try to immitate them. crop, exposure, and fine tuning your sbuject(fix his body form, hold the glass correctly, dress for the occasion, try different angles)

in all honesty, it looks like a snap shot in bw mode. what are you shooting with?

 

[loves_guitar]

Eyes. IMO, the eyes tell the entire story. In this pic, you can't see the subject's eyes. Lower the camera and shoot up into the face.

For what it's worth.

 

[niccig]

If not for the harsh light, I would see a young guy possibly struggling with his faith - but I don't think I've ever seen anyone have a crisis of faith outdoors on a sunny day. As for temptation, I don't see it at all. To me, a rosary implies Catholicism, and I didn't think Catholics had any prohibitions against drinking (though that could be totally wrong and pure ignorance on my part, since I'm not religious).

Disclaimer: The above was said with absolutely no intention of starting a religious debate/discussion, and was strictly for the critique of the mood of the photo. If mods think that it walks the edge of inappropriate, please delete, there will be no hard feelings.

 

[Znarled]

I think I can see where you were trying to go here - the young man struggling between the the choices of vice and faith.

The first problem I have with it is in the quality of the shot itself, the harsh light makes the cross actually difficult to see.

The second is an unreadable expression (I agree about being able to see the eyes and the dilemma you could create with facial expression).

The third is the lack of tension in the shot. There is not a strong impression of a choice being made. It's a guy having a nice glass of wine at lunch while holding a cross.

To convey emotion with a human subject, the easiest ways are to use the communicative properties of facial expression and body language.
Without human involvement (or to supplement human involvement), I'd focus on the use of specific colors that are associated with certain emotions and attempt to tell a story with your image. I'm thinking that outcomes/consequences are the best way to tell a story in a single frame. For example, to convey anger you could show something that is smashed or violently altered with diagonals and sharp edges, to convey peace you'd choose a soothing image with gentle curves and soft edges (yes I'm probably being too simplistic with those examples using basic composition formula for lines - ie. diagonals = tension, curves = calm).
I don't know I'm just rambling now but the key here I think is to really put some thought into imagery that can distinctly affect human perception and trigger base reactions - for your theme to work, you have to elicit the wanted response from the viewer.

Here's a couple quick thoughts that might work using the material in the shot above:

-Shoot at a low angle, take his hands off the items and place a visible expression of confusion/doubt on the face of the subject between the two items that represent the choice (something of an angel and devil on the shoulders thing). Maybe place the hands reaching for each object (equally or unequally depending on if he's totally undecided or leaning one direction) or remove them from the scene entirely. Keep the objects close to the plane where his face is and use a wide aperture to blur out the background and focus attention only on the face and the two objects. Put him in a neutral colored, solid, blank shirt. The t-shirt graphic/text distracts from the theme. Lose the lunch table (again you don't want extraneous things in the shot distracting from your purpose).
OR
-Drop the cross in the bottle of wine (or more accurately, carefully position the cross against the side of the inside of the glass so it can be clearly seen) - or wrap it around it. Low angle again with a clear facial expression (doubt, confusion, lasciviousness, glee, whatever just so that it's strong and conveys his need for something). Have the subject frozen in the act of raising the glass to his lips (or maybe go the other way and freeze him in the act of destroying the glass). Again, lose the graphic t-shirt and lunch table and force the viewer to concentrate only on the primary elements (in this case the person and the two items). Then scan the B&W image into photoshop (or paint it) so the only color in the image is the red of the wine. Or barring the use of selective coloring, make the liquid in the glass very very dark.

Of course I could very easily not know what I'm talking about at all (I often don't ;p), but your dilemma piqued my interest . . .good luck.

 

[Znarled]

lol this is intriguing - I'm still thinking about it and laughing at the fact that I already already overthought it.

Simple solution:
Show the guy praying with a rosary (counting the beads) with head slightly bowed and both hands on the cross and chain (as if all his attention is on his prayers). Have his head up enough with the camera at a low angle. Put the glass of wine off to the side and show the model's eyes looking way to the side directly at the wine (so you really see a lot of the whites of the eyes and the pupils clearly directed away from the prayer). For good measure, maybe a slight quirk to the mouth to show his gravitation towards the temptation of the vice.

 

[kulakova]

Personally me, i dont see here any emotion....
especially because there is no face and i cannot understand what is it?
also everything is cut here, hand on the left side, head and body...

 

[BoblyBill]

Thank you all for the advice... I already love this place... I knew the picture wasn't up to par for expressing the emotion, I just didn't know how to fix it! I'm not much one for doing people anyways because of all the legal model releases that I would have to have signed if I were to sell them anyways to stock and places of the sort. That was me in the picture btw

 

[BlitzN]

Well, you'd need to develop a portfolio and some skills before thinking about making some money. But anyways, it's easy getting models, just use a girlfriend, family, or friends. Model release forms should be like the least of your worries.

That pic isn't salvagable IMO, you should have experimented with different things (I tend to take TONS of shots trying different things to see what works best, then go back to fix things if I have to). Trying to get a message across like that..znarled hit it on the head.