obama family photo annie
Monday, April 19th, 2010
What do you think of Annie’s First Family Portrait?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4035513827/sizes/l/
I have a few observations. It seems a touch underexposed, the painting growing out of President Obama’s head is distracting and the crop is poor; cut’s the fingers off the president.
I agree with you. I don’t think I’ve EVER said something quite as egotistical as this, but I could have done better. So could a few thousand other people. Her reputation gained access is all. Maybe she was told to make them look like “ordinary” people, so she grabbed a snapshot and that was it.
My comment on Flickr:
The emperor has no clothes, and I am not speaking of our president. I can’t believe that I had to go through about 80 comments before someone offered the opinion that this is not great photography. It’s a beautiful family, yeah I agree, but it looks like Cousin Bo got a new digital camera and wanted ot try it out. Where’s the light coming from; an open window? The shadow on Michelle’s face should have been remedied, not to mention all of the highlights which are nearly blown out. If you want to use “the home” as a background, at least make the verticals vertical, please.
This looks like maybe the hallowed photographer was given two minutes to get a shot with no retakes. If I took my family to a studio and this was the best they could do, I would not buy the prints.
Also, please leave political comments out of Flickr. It’s a photo site not a political forum.
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ADD’L
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Check out the image next to this one in the photostream.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/4038014646/
The skin tones are right in this shot without any hot spots. The room is evenly lit. It kills me that they couldn’t level the fireplace in post (if not in the camera), but this is a much more pleasing photo than the family portrait.
Qoph (not that you will ever see this), I always try to not cut off anyone’s limbs (or digits) at a joint. If you want to crop an arm out of the frame, don’t crop right on the elbow. It looks like an injury or amputation if you do. Crop it somewhere above or below the elbow. Cutting off just the tip of a couple of fingers just doesn’t seem right to me. That’s just my opinion, though.
