Perfectly Poisedby
L1Comment by jmsetzler: Greetings from the Critique Club...
Hi Laurie...
I have always been fascinated by the wooden mannequins. I think they provide us with some unique photograph opportunities. Since they are human in form, they seem to easily offer 'life' where there is none. This in itself, can be fascinating :) I believe that Man Ray may have been one of the first photographers to use these as photo props. Some of his photos using these as props may have been done as early as 1926. There is a series called "Mr. and Mrs. Woodman" and another called "La Television" that I'm aware of. These are worth taking a look at if you are interested... search the web and see what you come up with. I have photographed a few of these myself and it is quite entertaining :)
I think your photograph here meets the challenge nicely. Your creative lighting also adds to the image. There are lots of opportunities for creative use of light here. This is one of those situations where you have to try a lot of different options and see what works best. If I was setting this up, I would try lots of different lighting scenarios before I started shooting. I find it interesting to simply observe how light interacts with a subject and how I can change that interaction by moving the light. This particular image would be quite intriguing if the mannequin was back-lit also. Back lighting could possible silhouette the mannequin and create a highlight border around it. The shapes and textures of this mannequin create some excellent shadow/highlight detail.
Another element that I would look at in a little more detail here is 'depth'. You chose to photograph this mannequin from a perspective that is fairly flat. Try some experimentations with different camera angles that create the sense of depth with this subject. With photography, that dimension of depth can be very powerful.
You received one comment here that I agree would be worth examination. Keegbow's comment about the crop... I also feel that some elements of this composition are dangerously close to the edge/corners of the frame. Filling the frame with your subject is usually a good idea, but you have to leave some amount of breathing room as well. The upper right corner is where this is most dominant in your photo.
Cheers and good luck in future challenges :)
John Setzler
Photographer found comment helpful.
