Thread: Johnnie
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Old 11-03-2002, 02:36 AM   #10
Steven Sweeney Steven Sweeney is offline
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It sounds like you're setting up for another shoot, but in this array I'd have picked #3. The coincidence of the top of the chair back and the shoulder line is a trap for the unwary but not unmanageable. (For example, keeping a cherry wood hue in the chair would be enough to distinguish it.)

#4 seems too severely pushed out of shape. Any of several areas -- eyes, hair, to mention two -- could really give you fits getting them to not look awkward.

I didn't know if you'd pull off the leaf patterns in "Morgan", and you did, but I think #2 here is pushed a little far on that continuum. The dappled light on Morgan played into the kind of secret-between-us canopied setting through which just enough light play was permitted. Similarly, I've seen paintings in which the broken light came through pattern holes in the wide brim of a straw hat, and the light play helped describe both the form of the hat and the person wearing it. In the picture here, there's a hazard of pushing the shadow play into the range of gimmick. These shadows tell us little about the portrait subject. For some reason I'm put in mind of the face-paint motif of Darth Maul.

May the Force be with you.
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