Photo Takeaways:

• SIMPLE BACKGROUND – The messy background clutters the image and directs the audience’s attention away from the focus.
• CLEAR AND SIMPLE LIGHT SOURCE – Messy lighting makes the image look very flat and bland.
• BROTHER WEAR THE SUIT – The suit covering the squiggly bus patterns on his shirt underneath helps reveal Bobby’s character: he is very silly inside.

Directing Takeaways:

• Be very specific about the position you want the model to be in, preferably demonstrate it yourself. The same goes for facial expressions, smiles from the model are much more genuine if the photographer is smiling too.
• Take consecutive shots especially when taking photos of movement, and look for the perfect moment during the movement.
• For jumping, plan out if and how you are going to move the camera. The model is going to jump and fall very quickly, so if you don’t know how to move your camera, it is very likely that the model will move out of frame.
• Inform the model of where is the boundaries of the photograph (the frame), the model may neglect the positioning of parts of their body because they don’t think it is in the frame.

For the final shoot, I realized that I did not plan out my brother’s clothing properly. When I saw him in his pajamas of silly and colorful bus patterns, I had to think of something on the spot. I chose to give my black suit to him just because I thought it covered up the patterns, and it created an unintentional effect.

The suit was not able to cover the bus shirt completely, and an edge of the bus pattern was visible through the suit. The edge was coincidentally the eyes of the bus. So for some of the photos where this edge was visible, there was a subtle contrast, almost juxtaposition of this black suit and a funny bus face.
E.g:

Rough selection&Brief analysis:

This image incorporated my brother’s love for the Rubix cube. He chose to have the yellow side face the camera as it is his favorite color. I did choose to make all the images black and white though. The lighting, the shadows, and his black suit all work very well with the black-and-white color scheme.

I mostly chose photos with strong shadows and sharp resolution. This issue does fill the criteria quite well, but there is not much emotion in his facial expression which I think weakens the image.

This photo captures a very funny facial expression my brother made. I really like the contrast in this image. Bobby’s nervous expression and the black and white dramatic color scheme, the black suit and the silly pajamas Bobby has on the inside. Overall I feel this image captures my brother’s character quite well: he feels nervous around a very serious environment.

I really like the black gradient of the background here. It focuses the audience attention onto Bobby. His pose and facial expressions are also great, making an interesting shadow. But I feel the lighting was not positioned very well here, the contrast of his face and the background is not very strong (his face is a little too grey here). This photo likely would have worked better with his face being the focus of the light.

This photo is one of my favorites of this rough selection. He is in a very serious pose, holding a Rubix cube in black and white. The black gradient background surrounds him. Everything around him is so solemn and deep, whilst he is just laughing his head off standing there.

This photo captures the genuine and spontaneous emotions I set off to find, and the contrast adds a layer of humor to this image. Overall, I like this image and I am sending it straight to the final selections.

This image looks better with better resolution, the textures are very strong, and the eye contact is very strong, but the lighting made his face incredibly dark, which I feel weakens the image as it decreases the contrast of the image.

If the lighting were better in this image, it would go straight to final selection.

This image I think is very fun as Bobby has a funny pose and a very obvious double chin. For the previous poses, he always tries to cover his double chin up, but I feel like it makes the image more authentic and spontaneous if he shows it.

However, this image is a little bland in terms of facial expression and positioning in comparison to the others.

 

These images are very similar in composition so I will analyze them as a whole. The mirror reflection of my brother paired with the strong contrast and black and white color scheme make this image overall very strong. The gap between Bobby and the mirror almost makes the composition of this image symmetrical.

I really like these photos, but most of them are pretty blurry so I will have to make sacrifices here.

I included this photo in the rough selection because I like the aura of mystery in this image created by the shadows concealing Bobby’s face. I feel like it would be interesting to include these kinds of serious photos in the final selection and then also include photos of Bobby laughing and cracking up. Showing how though he is in a serious environment, he maintains his optimistic attitude and silliness.

The shadows of this photo is especially interesting paired with his suit and glasses because the shadows almost create a chair similar to a boss arm chair. Putting Bobby in a position of power. Additionally, Bobby has his hands in a thinking posture, which strengthens the mysterious and serious mood.

I really like Bobby’s facial expressions in this image. He looks silly but also a little scheming at the same time, which makes this image very humorous. The contrast between the seriousness of his suit and surroundings with his facial expressions also strengthen this image. This is going straight to final selection.

These two images I was a little unsure of because though the lighting and shadows are very interesting, we cannot clearly see his face. I do like the sense of mystery and story in this photo though.