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Commercial Critique Part 1

I am now sitting in the commercial category I have peter hurry with may all the way from new york city he doesn't really need much in introduction but for those of you that don't know peter here lee tell anyone who you are and say hi well, thanks for having me first of all it's awesome to do stuff with you this week I just got to meet her this week and I'm so excited I am a commercial portrait photographer out of new york city most of my I specialize in headshot photography there as well and my websites peter hurley dot com so peter and I are all about the george the chin, the squints this mines in the work it say we've found that we had a lot in common even though we effectively do different things we do very similar things and it's been great to get tonight this wave from our somewhere for great speaker and it was really awesome to sit and watch you can eat because you have such a great presence and spain really awesome that you were part of this week thank you this's the creative li...

fe family they talking about here and I take this family very seriously these people and my people I have to tell you I really have been enjoying myself this week so I couldn't be happier to be here I missed it last year and I'm making up for it this year here we are, we're back for back, we're here neither you and I are traditionally trained photographers in the scenes that churches well traditionally trained I think I come from a very traditional porter background being there have been a photographer for so many years, but we're about to judge a very interesting category it's probably the most open can't agree that we've head in terms of winning is sort of a specific genre commercial is across the genre. Andi, I'm really interested to hear your critique on these images because at the end of the day they are it is just a very open category, so we've got a very wide range of images to talk about and show so let's get into it and talk about them and talk about what we know what we see, what we like, what we don't like and see what comes up perfect heavy spend much time, better cracking connect I do photograph products I have some product I started my career shooting my first commercial job was shooting shoes for reebok, so I shot shoots and I shot him for like a year like I got one pair of shoes and then I just kept getting they like what I did and I kept getting shoes so my first years of tyre for was where people and there was nobody was in them because this is an interesting john you know what you mean by that photograph anything doesn't have a human being in it well for this one yeah I'm I'm usually photographing human means to there's just a couple things that hit me what this is it looks unfinished it looks like it needs to be retouched or they need to prep the whatever are these what what kind of what is that were there in the sculptures or the lights of some description but ultimately the aim would be if it's a commercial shot it would be to sell its product yeah I don't I'm not sure well it's also plastered into the corner of their cut woman hand yeah so it is an interesting crop I don't know why I would kind of saying that this way I feel like if it was trying to be creatively artistic or in some form that his mr boat in terms of it being a viable commercial image it seems that there's a lot missing from it I don't even know what it's for is it like a top of a lipstick thing or something I don't like what is that I thought it was free standing I thought maybe they just used these two parties are you know they look like they're attached to them there's little hairs over here this thing's cropped it off it that I always crowd people said I shouldn't say anything about this area this is fine, okay, if you were going to mean for this photographer in order teo for them to learn how to take better commissioner images what was the critically you would give them? Well, the first thing is don't put something out of it it looks on finished it looks like there's dust all over this thing. If this is a product, you don't let it go what does getsem I mean I don't I'm not big on retouching faces I like face to look natural but be touching product that thinks you look perfect okay, what we sell in the ball valuable valuable player clothing line raining line uh I'm a huge um huge with direction of people and expression and immediately get turned off by her. Why? Because she's kind of got a blank almost meet not quite mean but her mouth is definitely not approachable at all that that is going to help sell the product but how hard it will there and what a slight hint of a smile maybe anything I mean the mouth is really flat it looks tense she looks completely uncomfortable and nervous she's like what the heck am I doing laying down on the ground and why is my hair above my head when somebody's about me this is obviously real grass, not too on dso I find probably the most intriguing pat it could be a soccer ball because I'm assuming if she's on grass it's okay, because we don't play volleyball on grass, do we? Or do we have to that's not a soccer balls and invaluable? I don't know, so I'm a confused by what ball it is and confused by what sport she plays, but what I do love is the perspective of looking down to the ground. I like that people don't just set people up, stand people out, but if you can't use that sort of lying down flip vehicle like a standing position, I would have created something magical with the hear that frame to really beautifully like she wass almost jumping, but then you get the ground and I'm not quite saying that there's a tie in to the product, the outfit choice. What the branding is all the ball or the sport because I'm kind of a little confused by what it is a commercial image needs to talk to me, it needs to sell me and it's to speak to me needs to attract me, it needs to hold my attention, but mostly it needs to be in one glance and needs to sell a product asked me, and I need to know what it is, right? I need eyes from a modeling perspective, um, I did a lot of modeling and, um the model has to give something towards the camera and that's a lot different when you're photographing somebody that they're they're paying you to take a portrait of them it's them paying when you're doing a commercial job the models were getting paid they have to perform there can't be this um you know deer in the headlights look they can't be stiff they have to give life to the cameras their job they're supposed to make the photographers obviously for tires bring a lot at a model but the models are supposed to be able to have some game too and she has no game there's nothing no life coming out of her I feel like she's not a model I feel like she's just maybe an athlete and you know but athletes definitely come with their own charisma in their own self power nobody no athlete I've even meet particularly one that's performing well as an athlete doesn't have some form off prisons about them because you have to have that tiger you know in utah orderto win so if you're going to photograph an athlete if she's not a model if she's a model she's doing a poor job or you it's being directed badly and if she's an athlete find the tiger and then find the fight and then find the power in them as an athlete what makes them win and bring that forward into photograph it's compelling and it's strong I did my first modeling job. I was an athlete. So I just bringing this up because I say they're a sailboat to my first modeling job is for poland. Bruce weber was the photographer, and I look at those images and I had no idea I'd never been in front of a camera before, and they're amazing it's because of what bruce brought out in me. So the photographer has that up this woman's game in that department. And if you are going to shoot grass that's, really, I would retouched to make it look uniform. Or if you're trying to create this, you know, it looks like a little bit drier yellow or whatever. Here, you could fix it. So that it's, kind of like I would be retouching that quite a bit. If it was a commercial shade, I would have cut out a piece of tooth two. I really like it, I think, to photographs really well, it has more of a pop as well, in the least destruction around it. Okay, two things one of them is when this hands and an image you look at it and she's pinching, if any. S o you look down there what she's pinching and obviously she's holding this good so it doesn't blow up I probably would have appreciated the missy here in the glowing skin if it had blown up and she caught it and was laughing about it it would have seemed to have had a little bit more spank again I'm not sure what's being sold here because she looks kind of fashion shi scott what I call farmer joe legs which is when the league's air apart you khun stagger the league's without separating the knees and making it look a bit too far majo she's a beautiful girl she's looking away she's holding shoes there's a boat there's a team there's a beach there looks like an event in the background I don't know if I'm selling sailboats or the big construction behind here or the blue dress but there's nothing about this image that actually brings a cohesive story or sell to me in any way what do you think this is for I mean you hit the nail on the head with this it's that there's a lot going on here and you know there's a big light on that mountain makes me look up there now it's a landscape shot we talked about it in the winning section we talked about it in the portrait section kokoshin else's when you get ready to go out go back to the merit take one thing off not your underwear. All right, take one thing off. Everybody is too busy all the time. I'm wearing a very secretive dress today I took my rings and my earrings off because I felt like it was just too much that's enough. Do it with your photography. Take one thing out of here. You could have changed the position off that boat and turned it towards those trees. If it was the boat you were selling, you could have positioned here on that letter without the boat if it wasn't the boat you were selling. But you're telling a story in commercial work also that or would be a big no no it's going straight up the camera and you know it I mean, let without official light because the light source looks like it's coming from the east and sorry from the west and then there's a light source going here that's putting a shadow off their or against that building. So it's just confusing and I don't believe it, so I'm not I'm saying it is just busy in too much I'm with you love it, it's cool, absolutely, I love it. I would definitely take the highlight out of that, linds, if you were smart, you'd put something really cool in there, you know, almost like a hint of an image you put something well, why not? You know, I just it depends what you're selling if it's about hearings are about sunglasses or whatever yeah, I mean, you could take this to a million different places, but this is really cool. I don't want to glamorize smoking spikings disgusting. I did it for many years, but there's just something so outrageously good about this then I love it. I love that you can see every pore of his skin but it's being beautifully reattached and I like that tight composition and the relaxed mouth in the direction of this so really cool sunglasses it's a sort of image that stops may I would tune a magazine stop and look at there and I would enjoy it if you wanted to make it well for me, then you just tidy up a bit of the here and the outside. I would have liked a little bit more space around it if it was in a magazine and then give me an editorial that it matches and I wouldn't be well impressed with this commercially. I feel the same way I love it. I guess you could tidy up the hair a little bit maybe the conversion to teo black and white or the tone it's got a little blue in it um that could be asked that we have being ok well, I love it it looks fantastic just to the way the smokes flown around her is just amazing. Um the one thing that my eye keeps getting drawn to his his elbow in the shot you know and I would have just not been highlights straight at me I would have even left the soapbox highlight before but it is really cool very cool show, you know, being really careful with hands he's differently good looking man he's got great connection he looks relaxed those hands do not you know if you're going to hold a coat, you've gotta hold a coat that looks like he's not being told to put his hands their hands have a mind of their own. Whatever you're touching, you tend to look at that place you would look from the face to the hands. Unfortunately with him I keep going down to his hands because they standing out and they're annoying me. Um, foreground be careful with that foreground it's not actually the foreground that bothers me. It's the headline from the pila I would have put him in front of it and keep this foreground because foreground is beautiful and just watch that you're not lightning the base of your contrast too much because when you're dax get that light it looks a little under exposed as opposed to being filtered and I don't think he needed it you feel the same way I feel like the eyes or to break for the exposure on the face just because they mean like and that's all that donald I don't want claiming you gotta be careful when you dutch up the eyes because they can get a vampire look quite quickly and you know it's he is striking because it does bring his eyes forward what would you I just can't told me about how you pose me intends I don't really think about men's hands I would never put them there it usually dependent upon the situation if I was shooting in this area I might have his left hand on top of whatever this thing is to get it out of the frame and then figure out some different things to do with this right hand and it definitely be lower I don't like the way that when jackets bunch up when you get like this and you have a tell and they guys had to hold their hands like eye for women my thing is ballet hands it's about leading with the heel palm and for guys it's always the opposite it's always strong you know risks out nice strong hands but you gotta watch those thumbs because anything and you know you gotta watch of four index finger always pops out or thumb pops out or middle finger pops on all three of those are quite significant gestures you know thumbs up pointing you know, flipping people off so you gotta watch what fingers sticking out and then the little finger is kind of feminine so if finger is dominating out of an image out of a fist and remember god unroll no fists, no claws and no thunder bids okay we gotta have relaxed hand said mean strong right and people do the cloth all the time right they do the first all the time and then they did the thunder bid which is this difference yeah thiss quoth underbid right and then watch your pinky snow thumbs up no pointing no flipping people off in their little fingers wow yeah so you've got to try and direct the hands really you know who's got the hands nail down bobby bobby got their hands now their aunt she's in a bit of a bump she's in a bit of a bell a position with slightly bent wrist they would have thought about that a lot when they were designing about these hands so you just think about that just make sure they're not connected to the elbow. One of the things that when I shoot men in jackets I like the shirt to come to sleep to come out of the jacket so when you do that thing I didn't I've never even thought about that so I read somewhere recently it was I was flipping through g q magazine and it said when you were at double breasted single breasted jacket with two buttons you only button one button the top button and you only baton that when you stand so when you sit you under your balance when you stand you do it back up again and then it said something about the pocket square and then it's it but it didn't say anything about the cuffs so that's interesting so you're saying you want to see the cups and it was pulled the cuffs down like I'll have the model stand there and I jim that cuffs way down and then I have a moving his hand around so that when they bring the hand up the cuff still comes out a little bit that's awesome that's great advice they didn't actually know what he was supposed to show the cups outside of the jacket or not I just read that in g q and I said well now I think I got some inside information on the boy's fashion yeah ok I love this image I left what it represents I like the connection to the model I liked the books around it I struggle with this big green four grand I think we could have just come above it a little bit more I love foreground but I just want to see a little bit list of it because I feel like it's very dominant but I like where this is going it's blindfolded they are britannia so the encyclopedia is which I don't even know if they exist anymore. Now that we have google and but I like that this is telling me a story I like that. If it would fit with an editorial, I don't really like the diagonal tilt because it's neither straight nor angled. So if you're going to commit to a tilt, either be diagonal will be completely straight. But the landscape is out for this one. For me I feel the same way about this area would like that to be a little bit lower in the frame. Maybe if it was their home um but I like the image a lot. I kind of like the way that things sweeps and I like the fallen for the focus also the tinus really beautiful in the way the here is being finished in highlighted is gorgeous on I love I love the hands and the attitude in the posture of the whole scene, like what is going on here and you want to know more and you wanted the editorial that goes with it. I think this is magnificent. It is a beautiful fashion image. It's, beautifully done commercial image. I'm very attracted to the simplicity of it. I love the retouching off that perfect I there's an interesting little line above the mouth which I don't know why that's being left there but you know it's so it's very cool everything so smooth lips or the only thing that don't look like they didn't mcgary touching two I mean, if it's all smooth, my eyes go into the texture and the lips I'm going to take down the texture on the lip a little bit if you're going to go this far with retouching really so instead of maine the opposite like keeping it now I like that um the eye is so perfect that if the lips were perfect, she would look very, very android also, if you had retouched the lips closed, made them plumper and smooth them out, she would look almost like a dull and but I love the use ofthe the jury over the I love thee here whether it's a wig or not is really quite magnificent, but in terms of being a compelling commercial image, I love it and well done I'm getting drawn bythe uh I brown there's a little funny on the side I make like try and even that right in here? Yeah, just throwing off, I just want oh, clean that up a little bit maybe, but instead of saying I'm one sided tio like that the light source is not flat yeah it's a really compelling image the eyes so fake it looks like they took a glass eye and put it in there I'm just not into that kind of stuff put this for this image it's because they going to work I wanted I actually wanted to go to the nth degree I want the lips to be perfect I want to get a look so out official that it's a remarkable like to me and I love that sort of perfection I would and large this image very very big like sixty inches and put it in my health okay I think it's got something about it that's fashion but it's almost fine at the more I look at the more I like it really really drawn to it when I was stunning shot well I really think that the expression matches the vibe of the picture this is a big difference this model looks like she's giving energy to do that and that's different it looks like she's messing with the camera in a kind of very vacant way and that's kind of why I called blank on purpose which is what I see here I feel from it it's micro expression it's so subtle but it's enough lift I tried to be blank right rather than the girl with the ball who was just nothing this is there were only blank yeah we're getting some from saying it's got what I call look ability makes you want to look at two new tristin position, you know and that's the thing the background choice here is amazing. That big thing can go. Those trees can go. They could have gone a little bit more to the left and just got that sky in this. I'm grass or dry grass or whatever it is. And I get that she's a lipid and I like a lipid top and I like it here in the makeup in the styling infect if I cover her bottom and look at the left bottom seidel left side of the image. I absolutely love it. But that pose is a big no no for me. She looks like she's about to go to the toilet. I feel closing. Closing comes down the body language and you have to ask yourself, what is the body language now? She's going to be a tiger? I would rather have him or in a starting sprint position. Like how would you have prices? I would have gotten close to that. I would have never been thought to make her crouch like like something. I think that was the entire shot. Would you have put on the knees? Like like he's gonna like a sprint ahead with one leg up but she's about to vault me I might have had her like floating through the air through this scene or something I don't know I like stuff to be aggressive if I'm doing it I would you know I don't shoot this kind of thing, so if I was it would be more comedic for me I feel like this a couple of visions here lifted as fast in a lipitor's usually an animal off you know it's an animal of prey, right? So its eyes afford which means it's a killer so to me it would have either been totally engaging through the eyes like I'm capturing a lipid like this just it's so see me for the first time it's going to eat me or deciding whether it wants to chase me not or that it's in a full state of running like a sprint towards me I feel like this is in between this is to kind of ah opposed hasn't quite worked and that you can see the short throw in this hair like coming down here right in the middle of everything I'd rather have it off back over here if it was going to be like that's just I don't know the post just kills it immediately so it's just rest of it I love this this is also this is a this is a way is an album cover. This is an editorial, this is this is the cover of a magazine I mean, this is easily this is a beautifully as you see so much, she must be totally charged. And aside from it being commercial portrait or even an image that I don't even know, you need to know who she is. It's enough, it should be a stock image. It I mean, it's, she's, probably a songwriter and singer and somebody famous, but if she wasn't, then the whole thing is just magnificent. You've told a story and you've told it very beautifully. You've managed to be visually compelling at the same time is having interesting lines in giving me something that I want to buy into. You know, I love it. I just there's only one thing about it that I wish was different. It's got this old that that's amazing. The chair looks very well the radiator and you know, I wish there was an old looking radiate. I have a radiator in my state of this pride from the nineteen I don't know how that sucker is, but if an old radiator was in there, it would be really cool, so maybe if they could hide somehow, hide the radiator with the drapery and a little bit more other than that my I just goes over there and that just killed because it looks time was and then you see that and then you're like oh it's it's not really from you get rid of the radiator retouch it out bring the kid and over it just hide it you can leave it there this cheers beautiful qatar's beautiful pink love the green I love the tie into the pink and pink I like it dark lipstick I also would have loved to have seen any images which she was lying length wife in the bath as well it's absolutely gorgeous and for fun I would have filled up the bath and head of sitting in the same position so she was sitting in the back with all of their clothes on and a guitar yeah that was a cool show a very good job food I find the food genre to be an incredible commercial genre because some people do it so incredibly well in some people do it poorly I have seen food photographers critique and tear apart images and what it came down to from may was I'm having food photographer but do I like it enough that I want to eat it it's kind of perspective well I kind of think it find the client I'm not the initial client but I'm the food client and what I see this on a on a menu and go oh this is yeah, it looks like it's sitting on a number something like what is that? I know and it doesn't make me feel yummy. Could you eat that off of that thing? The broker is distracting little highlights in the broker I think they did the field ist too shallow and so we're not seeing the food behind it. I don't actually know what it is or how big it is because there's no reference to a plate or forks that could either be a mess of kind of maybe or sushi size roll. I'm so I'm confused by leaders on a pedestal. I know that we've had lots of wonderful food photographers at creative live best probably being penny douglass santos on dh she had a gift with photographing food and even the connection she has to food around it and that's a great workshop feeder revisit if you are interested in being a food photographer, she has a very amazing gift of teaching as well and she's beautiful connection to I know a lot of thie staff here at creative life really bonded with here, and she was a great woman and a great workshops of food photography, just your thing, then maybe kick her out because I'm not kind I don't know why they would pick that that side of the meat anyway, and look at this mess over here that my state photographers have food stylists, and if they don't have foods dallas, they have people, they ballooned to style their own food, which I think is really important if you guys can get a food shoot it's awesome, I did it, and, uh, I was like, and the chef is like, well, which which meals? Which plate should we do? I said everyone I like, I'm like, just do all these cause I'm gonna taste every single one of way hey was amazing and I and I really it's one of my favorite restaurants in new york and I and I did all the food. So what a style it headed you like I had? Well, the chef was doing it with me, the styling, it was me and him, he was just the stylist and it came right from the from the kitchen right to me. So it was andre used natural light with a little bit of of some kino flow stuff, so I didn't actually want to say anything, but to me the best food photography of the scene is mostly natural light because it's softer and there's more information around it. Yeah, good stuff I want you to shoot at this forty five angola. Did you shit down on the food cause I've seen both of those strong angles and food photography I have to say one of the hardest things was figuring out the angles to shoot it dependent on the plate like if I was shooting ah bowl and you couldn't see into the bull if you were low you came higher but if I was shooting a burger I wanted to be almost like side I'm right on it to see the height of that sucker and the juice and everything and then just to eat it afterwards so so I enjoyed it I I think you know it's not something I've done it a few times and that's it but I really do enjoy it when I do get those jobs well ok my initial thought is why is she looking at the camera? Because if she is, you know, on the front of the old boat when they had the woman on the old boat and she's predicted forward and cheesy, you know, the siren on the boat then I kind of think that she would be more like that and instead she's tend towards the camera like a portrait. Um the interesting part is it's not a real show it's a real woman so I don't quite get it is a commercial image but the execution of it is excellent it's been reattached well and I get it I don't know about this and I was thinking the same way we need the table at all and I think if you're gonna have that much reflection, you maybe should have left their affection in to some degree, come down lower shot at lower, with perspective, reflection. But this is a really interesting in it. I don't want her looking at me like, hey, that bastard, into the bag of a shoot me, that's. Weird. Why you stuck there like that, because she's looking at you, which makes it a short trip. But if she was looking straight up like this, it would be formed and that's the difference between form in port world than that should be a form shot, I think, and I don't. I'm not a fan of the I would work on these reflections in the shoe to, but she just looks on finished here. This looks too sloppy.