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Training vessel and group photo.............


svenning

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Svenning -

 

Colors, details, light, exposure, and andgle are all on target. Perhaps they were expecting something a bit less ordinary -- Maybe with props or in less traditional poses? Perhaps something that refelcts their personalities or positions? As a standard group shot I think this is quite good.

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Svenning -

 

Colors, details, light, exposure, and andgle are all on target. Perhaps they were expecting something a bit less ordinary -- Maybe with props or in less traditional poses? Perhaps something that refelcts their personalities or positions? As a standard group shot I think this is quite good.

 

Dear Stuart,

 

They actually wanted the below mentioned picture - and I find that a little more boring :-))

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The most obvious difference between the photos is that in the first, many of them look unhappy/annoyed/tired.

 

In the second, mot people are smiling.

 

I liked seeing the containers in the background of the first. Maybe you could have cropped in tighter (by re-arranging the group more like the second pic) and made them smile :)

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In the first picture, most characters have no eyes : they squint, close it,

etc.

And I feel the eye is indeed attracted by the perspective, the containers, the ship and

the sea itself, so for the viewer there is a tough competition regarding what to look at, and a tendency to escape the boring group on the foreground to look beyond and

leave it where it is…

In the second photo, much more conventional and boring, there are some

eyes and there is no doubt about the foreground/main character of the image…

no competition with the sea.

Plus : the light is brilliant, the colours crisp, it seems a sunny day, a cheery place.

In the first picture, light is dull, it seems a cloudy day, with a slate grey menacing sea…

 

Reminds me an old theatrical rule : if you put a child or a animal on stage, be sure

the other actors are top performers. If not, the powerful and untainted nature of

the child/animal will "spoil the show" — voler la vedette, as we say in french

;-)

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The other difference is that in the first you are looking down on them and in the second you are looking up at them (I guess you knelt for this shot - judging by eye levels). Psychology is that if they see a photo of themselves being looked down upon, they see themselves as being inferior...?

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Ravi,

I thought about this, and, well, I'm not sure.

I have an outstandung picture, taken in Switzerland, in the fifties,

from the balcony of a hotel, on a group of maybe 200 skiers, all

crisp and happily smiling to the camera above them.

You feel as if they were delighted to smile towards the sun or

a very good friend popping up there.

;-)

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To me it's quite obvious why they like the second picture more.

 

They want to remember their time training together. The individuality and charactor of each is much more apparent in the second shot. If only because they are bigger. But, also they are more relaxed, not kneeling or squinting.

 

Interesting how the subjects and photographer have different goals for the picture.

 

Best,

 

Mitchell

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Hi Johan,

 

I am not a psychologist nor any good at "empathy" or "feelings" (a point highlighted at one of those stupid management assessment centres - guess my feelings at the results :rolleyes:), but would looking at yourself in a group of 200 skiiers (all wearing those stupid outfits and hats and goggles) feel different to being a cadet and one amongst just 13? Lets be honest - a cadet is the lowest form of life on board a ship - even the cat is more useful and honoured :D .

 

Anyway - maybe the squinting of the eyes is a better answer to why the first does not look as good as the second.

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I'm no expert, but here's a few observations, and some suggestions based on my experience

and research that seem to make sense to me

 

a. in the first photo, some people have their eyes closed as they blink. It's probably

better if someone tells a joke so that their attention is taken off the camera and

onto a subject that they are watching intently. Have someone do an Elvis impersonation.

 

b. again in the first photo, maybe would have been better to be just a little bit above

eye level, as though standing on a box. That would have given more focus to

the men from the waist up, and would have put the cargo boxes a little more out

of sight, but still in the background.

 

I don't agree with the 'inferior' argument, because taking a picture of someone

just above eye level, looking up typically gives the best portrait shots, since the

shape of the face (jawline, nose, eyes, lips) is more pronounced than the shape

of the head.

 

c. somewhere I read that whenever you take pictures always turn around 180 degrees. It

may give you a more interesting angle. So for example in the first photo I bet that

behind you was the bridge, so taking a photo from below with the bridge as the

background, perhaps with the guys leaning forward over the bannister, would have

made it a more personable shot and made it seem like they were really a part of the

ship's crew and not part of the cargo.

 

d. the second photo again looks like a lineup. Folks sitting in a row like that seems

unnatural. People naturally sit facing towards each other or in groups, so I would

think that a photo with them around a dinner table ( even if some folks were standing

behind to squeeze into the picture ) would be better.

 

e. the second photo is better than the first, for me, mainly because the eye tends to follow

the faces and expressions. In the first the eye tends to bounce around between the

men to the cargo to the horizon, so it is a little distracting. Maybe that's why people find

it not as pleasant.

 

 

Hope that helps, but again, I'm not an expert. I just read a lot ;)

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