My first pic.........

[Laberin]

hey everyone.im new to this forum and somewhat new to photography.i took this pic with my friends DSLR.please tell me what you think.in my personal opinion i think the light coming through the window in the back hindered it, but over all im happy with what i saw.

thank you for your input everyone

[Irakly Shanidze]

and now imagine if there were open scissors on the blanket behind the girl...

[Laberin]

good point Irakly. but i didnt want the attention to be drawn form her hands and arms.i thought the raw body language was more important than a story ie.scissors

thank you for the input Irakly.you dont know how much i appreciate it.

please keep it coming everyone

[darkman]

Hi Laberin,

I don't like how you chopped her head off. It's probably the reason Irakly though of a the scissors! I'm not sure what to do. Maybe hide the hair and crop a little different? I'm also not sure what you were trying to do with her pose? It's almost sexual with her arched back and protruding chest. But the arms don't do it justice. They kind of lay there. I've also learned that having the subject lift their arms just slightly from the body will thin them out.

The lighting needs work too. I keep getting drawn to the hot spot on her shoulder and breast and then to the hotspot on the bed. It leaves me wondering what I'm supposed to be looking at. A larger light source placed closer to the subject could remedy this.

And while it is not a necessarly "main stream" image, it's not original either. I say not necessarly main stream because a lot of adds in mags like vogue. etc, are using the same basic composition. Imagine a two page spread of a women in a black dress on the edge of the bed like yours with the neck clearly showing and a diamond neclace in the hot spot that's centered on the other page.(btw, vogue is a very sexual magazine image wise, probably moreso than typcical mens mags which the most sexual shot is on the cover to improve sales).

IMO, If it's tyring to be sexual, adding her chin and lips could go a long way as well as putting a pillow by the back hot spot. I think if it's going to be a theatrical image it needs to be stepped up some.Using the scissor theme thats been thrown in, a scissor partially in the shadow by the hot spot on the bed may add a lot. Then the hot spot back there would serve a purpose.

Just my thoughts.

Mike

[Laberin]

well i agree with you on most of your comments darkman but this photo was not posed.i didnt set it up.my friend was sitting on the bed and all i said was 'dont move" it was not meant as a sexual pic,im dissapointed that it looked that way to you.i agree with you on the lighting it does need work.and kudos on the arm raise.i appreciate your pro oppinion

[Asylum Steve]

Laberin,

I like this shot. I won't pretend to know you're intent here, but IMO when you severly crop like this, it's to create a mild or perhaps stronger "shock" to the viewer because it goes so much against what we normally see in a photo.

It also forces the viewer to concentrate on the other elements of the frame, and more importanly, to imagine what the subject's face might look like.

I feel it serves little purpose to suggest to you that you should not have cropped the shot the way you did, because this is a common and legitimate "anti-art" style of working. I believe we should simply respect the choices you've made, and think about the shot the way it is presented.

So, in this regard I think this shot works really well. I don't see the highlights (the subject's blouse and arms) as "hot spots" in the negative sense, but rather as a focal point that plays off the dark detail of the rest of the frame. Along with the severe cropping, it serves to create a great tension and present the viewer with an "off-balanced" balance.

Does that make sense?

One thing I have to disagree with you on is that (again, my opinion) many viewers will perceive a heavy sexual tone to the image. Of course, this is usually something created in the mind of the viewer, but this shot has classic elements of eroticism: the documentary style (almost Polaroid-like), the anonymity of the crop, a shapely woman sitting on what looks like an unmade bed, some rather hard to interpret body language, the red color scheme, etc.

Regardless of your intent, these things can't help but to combine to fuel the imagination of the viewer, and one of the vibes it gives off is definitely sexual.

Thanks for posting...

[natatbeach]

I know your intent may not have been sexual but this definitely has a very distinct mood.

an anticipation to it----

Looking at this shot as a whole in the way it's cropped and how extreme the contrast and elements are...no subtle details and it makes me get lost in the picture---I keep searching the edges of the shot to see if I can catch a glimpse of anything that can give me more information on the story before the shot---what's happeining at the time it was taken--- that we don't see outside the frame---the pose makes her look uncomfortable(uneasy) which kinda makes me wonder what's happening or about to happen.

I think the crop works really well in this shot because it makes her totally anonymous. In pics of people we have such a tendency to rely on the faces to dictate what we should be feeling about the picture---faces sometimes spoil the shot because there is not much past it we can look at. This shot from the angle the colors just keeps me wanting more...

Great first post...it's the beauty of art that allows us to ignore technicalities of an image tht's less than "perfect" and allows us to appreciate/look beyond all that and see them for what they are and their full potential to entertain us.
;)

so tell us...what was it you saw in this shot that inspired you to have her"hold still" and then spurred you on to share it...I bet it'll be a totally different thought process since you had all the details of the situation.

[Laberin]

its somewhat hard to explain.she was somewhere else when i took the picture.she was thinking about something and she had that distant look about her.and i just had to take the picture.she sat up straighter after i had taken the shot so it wasnt exactly what i wanted, so it gave the shot a whole other dynamic.hence the sexual vibe.but i liked the picture just the same so i thought i would share with everyone here.

thank you all for your input here.youve taught me more than you think.i apreciate it

(please post more comments if you would like to)


-Laberin