Photo Critique

Olena Babak · 12-26-2007, 03:40 PM

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Claudemir Bonfim · 12-26-2007, 09:23 PM

I like it very much. I'd like to suggest that you paint more air around them, specially on the boy's side and maybe not crop the dress. But that's not important, that's a lovely resource photo. You will surely have a lot fun doing it.

Congrats.

Terri Ficenec · 12-27-2007, 02:05 AM

I agree that this is a good reference shot and will make a lovely portrait. Besides a little more space (it might be nice to see some indication of the nearer side of the bench that she's sitting on) -- 2 areas that you may want to consider/plan ahead for are:
- her teeth (perhaps keep them soft/low contrast) and
- the way the one tendril of the girl's hair separates her head from her neck. . .you might consider pushing the hair back a bit so that the head doesn't read as disconnected (esp. if you've got other photos that show the neck more clearly or can get the girl to pose in this position again for reference)

Overall, though, very nice lighting, hand positions, expressions...

David Carroll · 12-27-2007, 10:23 PM

I would suggest that the boy not lean left but be more of a upright support for the leaning girl. It makes me lean when I look at it.

Peace,

Olena Babak · 12-27-2007, 11:07 PM

Hello everyone and thank you for the feedback.

Claudemir, this is actually my dilemma: The mother of the children really loves the picture, but I feel that they need to sit straighter, and he needs to have more space on the left. But, due to the size constraint, I cannot move them because it will cut into the girls arm.

Terri: Thank you so much! They are very good points and I will be keeping them in mind as I'm working on the sketches and the painting later on.

David: I agree. But I don't have another chance for a second photo shoot... I'm just trying at this point to figure out how I can make this particular picture work. This picture is proportional to the size of the canvas that the mother wants; this is my work area and I can't change it.

Any ideas on how to make the movement and composition work within the painting?

Has anybody seen any good examples of dual portraits with similar poses?

Thank you

Mike McCarty · 12-28-2007, 11:13 AM

Olena,

You might want to re-check your photo proportions to your canvas size. I don't think the ratios are the same. If this is true you will need to make some modifications to get this image on your 33x27 canvas.

That said, I agree that the composition would benefit from some additional room on our left. Also, I agree that if you could straighten the boy up a bit it would help a great deal. You might be able to accomplish this if you make a few sketches toward that end. Even if it were just his head... maybe, and bring his right elbow out a bit. The angle change on his right arm might help the slanting issue. You would have to experiment. Rarely do we produce the perfect photo image.

The other thing you could do is reduce the size of the subjects within the given canvas size thus giving more room on the sides. This is not a great solution because smaller is rarely better.

These are all the type of tricks you'd rather not have to consider. It is for these reasons that I work out in my mind whether I want to tackle these problems before I ever show a photo to a client. It's not a good idea to allow a client to have so much control over the creative process. They don't understand all the issues. And, after they have "fallen in love" with an image it's difficult to make them understand the problems you will face. They usually just shrug and say "well, you're the artist, you can make it work." Easy for them to say, they don't sign at the bottom.

Consider whether or not a custom sized canvas a few inches wider wouldn't be just as suitable to the space.

As someone said: This is not brain surgery, it's much more difficult.