Rock Star
This is my great friend and great guitarist Jacob Stibbie. He and his brother Thomas are starting a new band and asked me to do some portrait of them. Here is my favorite of the batch. Please let me know what I can do better.
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3 Comments
My suggestions are pick a more appropriate setting for a "rock" star, although I do like your sense of humour; and pick a better lens, try a macro lens but it will depend where you are shooting
Personally, this shot seems a little blah, to me. You see a guy holding a guitar, but I see no personal connection to the instrument. In the shots of musicians that I have liked best, there is some connection between the the artist and the instrument. That connection can be intense, playful, joyous, or silly, but there needs to be some reason for me to think that this is a guy who lives for (and loves) his music.
A quick search gave me this link, from Time magazine. You'll recognize the guitarist.
http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1916544_1921859,00.ht…
Having said all of the above... You'll see other shots associated with that link. Notice that the concert shots show an obvious element of "connection", because the guitarists is in the act of playing. Showing that connection in a posed portrait presents challenges. Good Luck!
Darin pretty much nailed it- there needs to be a personal connection to the instrument. This is pretty much a snapshot. Without getting into lights and reflectors, you need to find some bright shade or some other relatively even lighting to get away from the harsh, direct sun light. You can see how deep shadow envelopes the eyes very heavily, and the nose is essentially white with sun reflection that is too bright. There is too much sky here- get closer or use a telephoto lens. Be aware of your background- there is something that looks like a rusted pipe running into/out of his hand on the guitar that is very distracting. Using a larger aperture and or longer focal length lens will help blur out the background thus providing more attention on the subject. That's just a short review. As Darin suggests, look at what others have done. It's not easy. Keep shooting, keep practicing.