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Portrait of Melania Trump

Cardinal

Cardinal

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I do this for a living, and my personal feeling is that the portrait "needed more time to cook." What Melania is giving off here is a very familiar kind of stiffness and discomfort that comes with having just started the photography process. A really good photo shoot goes on for at least three hours, and only is it near the end that the subject starts to relax around the photographer and come across as more natural. It feels to me like the photographer maybe had a half hour with her.
On a more personal aesthetic level, I'm not a big fan of the "body growing out of the middle of the canvas" compositional method.


Thoughts?


First Lady Melania Trump Gets Her First Official Portrait : NPR

melania-04032017_custom-8721bf5d4df20f23dc78d1d5f920fc37bceebed7-s400-c85.jpg
 
Cardinal said:
I do this for a living, and my personal feeling is that the portrait "needed more time to cook." What Melania is giving off here is a very familiar kind of stiffness and discomfort that comes with having just started the photography process. A really good photo shoot goes on for at least three hours, and only is it near the end that the subject starts to relax around the photographer and come across as more natural. It feels to me like the photographer maybe had a half hour with her.
On a more personal aesthetic level, I'm not a big fan of the "body growing out of the middle of the canvas" compositional method.


Thoughts?


First Lady Melania Trump Gets Her First Official Portrait : NPR

View attachment 67215918
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I think it is beautiful. It reminds me of those glamor shots of long ago. She is a beautiful woman. And, since you are claiming critical expertise, how about posting a couple of your shots?
 
Wow. With all that money, you'd think they could get someone who wouldn't use such hamfisted lighting, wouldn't bleach out the center of her face (if the lighting were right, he/she wouldn't have to) and wouldn't have her looking so mannequin-esque.

I don't shoot as many portraits/fashion shots as I used to, but it doesn't take much to see this is crappy work.
 
MaggieD said:
I think it is beautiful. It reminds me of those glamor shots of long ago. She is a beautiful woman. And, since you are claiming critical expertise, how about posting a couple of your shots?
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No doubt there are a lot of tools to work with here: You already have a beautiful woman who's hardly a stranger to modeling, so I think the body language should have been better. I'm not blaming the subject, mind you, but the photographer. Or, of course, it may simply be that he didn't have enough time to do his job right. I can only speculate. The arms folded pose is very commanding and strong when pulled off correctly. When not, it comes off as rigid and defensive which I'm getting a bit of here. If it had had, as I said, a bit more time to cook, this could have been quite good.

The color harmony, though, is very good. You can never go wrong with an assembly of the primary colors with black and white.
 
Her face looks weird. Feral. It's her eyes. They have an odd angle.


And I would say she is likely quite comfortable in front of the lense. To me, this looks more like...she told the shooter what she wanted, and he tried his best to comply.
 
Tanngrisnir said:
Wow. With all that money, you'd think they could get someone who wouldn't use such hamfisted lighting, wouldn't bleach out the center of her face (if the lighting were right, he/she wouldn't have to) and wouldn't have her looking so mannequin-esque.

I don't shoot as many portraits/fashion shots as I used to, but it doesn't take much to see this is crappy work.
Click to expand...

It's all in the body language. If she had been relaxed and natural, it would have been good.
 
You know, the more I look at it, the more that giant white shape in the top left corner is bugging the bejeezus out of me.
 
Cardinal said:
It's all in the body language. If she had been relaxed and natural, it would have been good.
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Eh. The back lighting is too harsh for my taste, and the effect it creates, together with the overly-lit center of her face (whether from playing around w/CP1 or from a flash) is just too artificial for my taste.

That, and when doing body-portraits, as opposed to facial portraits, having all that distracting crap in the background is quite amateur hour.
 
My opinion is that she's beautiful and it's a beautiful portrait.
 
Tanngrisnir said:
Eh. The back lighting is too harsh for my taste, and the effect it creates, together with the overly-lit center of her face (whether from playing around w/CP1 or from a flash) is just too artificial for my taste.

That, and when doing body-portraits, as opposed to facial portraits, having all that distracting crap in the background is quite amateur hour.
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The...whatever...in the background is really unfortunate, no argument there. And I said, I personally stay away from "figure growing like a tree trunk from the center of the canvas." But I think that all the corrections to the composition on the planet can't fix that self-defensive posture.
 
Cardinal said:
The...whatever...in the background is really unfortunate, no argument there. And I said, I personally stay away from "figure growing like a tree trunk from the center of the canvas." But I think that all the corrections to the composition on the planet can't fix that self-defensive posture.
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Brings to mind of her posture and demeanor on inauguration day/night.
 
Haters gonna hate. That's a given.

It's a political portrait, not a cover for Vogue.

Final thought....that's a freaking HUGE rock on her finger.
 
Cardinal said:
I do this for a living, and my personal feeling is that the portrait "needed more time to cook." What Melania is giving off here is a very familiar kind of stiffness and discomfort that comes with having just started the photography process. A really good photo shoot goes on for at least three hours, and only is it near the end that the subject starts to relax around the photographer and come across as more natural. It feels to me like the photographer maybe had a half hour with her.
On a more personal aesthetic level, I'm not a big fan of the "body growing out of the middle of the canvas" compositional method.


Thoughts?


First Lady Melania Trump Gets Her First Official Portrait : NPR

View attachment 67215918
Click to expand...

My thought is that I would have been really surprised if you had posted you actually liked Melania's portrait or really anything about or touching on any of the Trumps.
 
Cardinal said:
The...whatever...in the background is really unfortunate, no argument there. And I said, I personally stay away from "figure growing like a tree trunk from the center of the canvas." But I think that all the corrections to the composition on the planet can't fix that self-defensive posture.
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I thought you weren't blaming or bashing her but you just can't help it, can you? :D
 
X Factor said:
My thought is that I would have been really surprised if you had posted you actually liked Melania's portrait or really anything about or touching on any of the Trumps.
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If you'd like to start a separate thread on me personally, then by all means knock yourself out. For myself, I would have handled her portrait differently and for the reasons I stated. I don't really have a problem with the lighting that Tanngrisnir does, though left to my own devices I would have gone with at a least a little shadow to chisel out the forms.
 
X Factor said:
I thought you weren't blaming or bashing her but you just can't help it, can you? :D
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I'm not bashing her. I deal with this all the time. People who just get into the studio and start posing, especially if it's with a new photographer, are stiff and uncomfortable. That's an across-the-board phenomenon. Dial it down, Xfactor, you don't have to be on Defcon 30 all the time.
 
Cardinal said:
If you'd like to start a separate thread on me personally, then by all means knock yourself out. For myself, I would have handled her portrait differently and for the reasons I stated. I don't really have a problem with the lighting that Tanngrisnir does, though left to my own devices I would have gone with at a least a little shadow to chisel out the forms.
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No need. You made your personal preferences part of this thread. I'm just saying that if, upon reading your OP, you had been, "wow, now that's a really well done portrait, she looks really good" (or something along those lines). It would have surprised me. As it turns out, I was not surprised. That's all.
 
X Factor said:
No need. You made your personal preferences part of this thread. I'm just saying that if, upon reading your OP, you had been, "wow, now that's a really well done portrait, she looks really good" (or something along those lines). It would have surprised me. As it turns out, I was not surprised. That's all.
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Thanks for your non-participation, xfactor. I'm sorry this thread hurt your feelings so much.
 
Tanngrisnir said:
Wow. With all that money, you'd think they could get someone who wouldn't use such hamfisted lighting, wouldn't bleach out the center of her face (if the lighting were right, he/she wouldn't have to) and wouldn't have her looking so mannequin-esque.

I don't shoot as many portraits/fashion shots as I used to, but it doesn't take much to see this is crappy work.
Click to expand...

I do agree that the lighting, and the background in general, isn't very good.
She is obviously a beautiful woman and isn't going to look bad regardless of what you do but they could have done better. The background is a bit distracting.
Not that I'm an expert.. particularly on portraits.. I don't do photography professionally but did consider photography as a profession in college so had several classes and did photography for college newspaper.
 
Cardinal said:
You know, the more I look at it, the more that giant white shape in the top left corner is bugging the bejeezus out of me.
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I was thinking that as well. Looks like something shooting out or into her head. Very distracting.
 
holbritter said:
I was thinking that as well. Looks like something shooting out or into her head. Very distracting.
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A good background is the one that you don't see. If the photographer had wanted those shapes in the background he should have placed her where there was a radial effect. It's risky, but when it works it's pretty cool.
 
Melania looks beautiful. Then again, she really is gorgeous in RL.
 
Cardinal said:
Thanks for your non-participation, xfactor. I'm sorry this thread hurt your feelings so much.
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Don't sweat it. My feelings weren't harmed in the least. If anything, I find/found it reassuring.
 
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