Critique Images

Female: Earlier in the show we’re looking at the technique of high key photography. I wonder whether you can give me your impression about two images that the viewer sent in. Steve: Yeah, although, obviously both high key images, they got that in common and looking at them, there’s the obvious differences. Female: So what are the differences then? Steve: Well you got little boy, he’s been presented in black and white. Female: Yeah. Steve: Obviously you got Emilou there in color. They’re both in the center of the image, but they’re obviously, they’ve been taken for different reasons. Female: Right. Steve: So the little boy is a family portrait, so the customer, or the portrait, the customer is either in front of the camera or in this case you got the little boy so his parents are gonna be the customer and they’re just, just off camera. But they’re there, you know that they’re there, and the customer’s there. Emilou’s there is the model, she’s not the customer, the picture being taken for a different purpose. Female: Right, so those, they’re obvious differences, but what about the technical differences in the photos. Steve: Well with the little boy, chances are he’s running around the studio, they’re not gonna sit there for hours so you can set up a lighting and get it technically correct. So what you’re gonna need to do is have a slightly more flat lighting so that you allow him to move around within a larger space, but there is still modeling lights going on there. Female: And also next, he wasn’t actually looking directly at the camera either. Steve: Absolutely. Now there with the picture, remember who the customer is. It’s the parents. What they’re looking for then is the character of the little boy. They’re not necessary looking there see every single feature looking directly at the camera cute as it may be. Now actually here, we’ve got little bit more of his character, there’s a little bit more depth there in terms of who he is as a little lad. And the fact that he’s looking off camera, it just has a little bit to that story really. Female: So with the picture of Emilou, what are the technical differences? Steve: Well Emilou is a static subject. She’s going to sit there, hopefully if she’s a good model as long as you need her to. Female: Yeah. Steve: You can move the lighting around her to produce something that is much more technically perfect. This one, we want to be isn’t, as perfect as possible with the lighting and the shadow. And she’s gonna sit there as long as necessary to get that right. The picture of the little lad has much more forgiving technically. We’re looking after the character to show through, and that’s will, to override the technical aspects. Female: So if you say that the character can override the technical aspects. How do you actually judge a photo? Steve: Well there are technical aspects that we are looking for within the image. Your eyes are going to be drawn to the lightest part of the image first. Now in this instance, it’s actually his ear. Not the main interest of the picture, which is facial features. Female: Right. Steve: Now if you look at the eyes, there are the catch light there, so there is light in front. But ideally that should be a little bit more powerful and override that side of the face with the ear. Female: So you always over focus, obviously, to the main features, so you gotta be careful where you light the photo, obviously. Steve: Yeah, ideally the less light will be looking slightly further around and start looking at that light. Female: Right, so, how are you going to judge the photo of Emilou then? Steve: With Emilou, we can be more critical over the technical aspects. Looking at the symmetry of the shoulders, they’re not quite symmetrical. Also looks like she’s gripping the chair this bit too hard coz the muscle tone there and we’ve got disconnected hands. They’re not quite connected to her body. Female: Also with the hair being really blond and the background being really white, is there a problem with this? Steve: Absolutely, you do need to separate the subject from the background. So having, so very light hair, it does make it more difficult to light it. And that’s been done very well in this image. Female: Ah, brilliant. So to summarize what can we take away from this? Steve: The reason why we’re taking the image, the photographer should always need to have that in mind. In this instance we got two different types of customers. We got the family portrait and the stock image and we need to think about how do we fulfill what the customer needs from that image. Female: Well that’s great Steve, thank you very much. Steve: Thank you.