Mayor of the Year Portrait Photos

Leslie Ficcaglia · 03-04-2003, 04:00 PM

Here are three photos which I just took for a new commission. The woman is a mayor and is being honored as NJ Mayor of the Year. I'm planning to use the face closeup for her head but I'd like to hear input about which full figure photo I should use for the body and how much of her should be included.

Leslie Ficcaglia · 03-04-2003, 04:03 PM

(There has to be a way to include multiple images in a message!)
Here's No. 1:

Leslie Ficcaglia · 03-04-2003, 04:05 PM

Here's No. 2:

Leslie Ficcaglia · 03-04-2003, 04:08 PM

By the way, the point is that she's the mayor of a shore town.

Here's the head:

Cynthia Daniel · 03-05-2003, 12:14 AM

The only way to include more than one image in a post is to use the IMG command with a web address from a server. However, we discourage the use of that.

Leslie Ficcaglia · 03-05-2003, 08:40 AM

Thanks, Cynthia. At least I know I wasn't missing something.

I had a devil of a time nailing this subject down for a photo session - I had been been trying to coordinate a meeting with her for well over a month now - and the painting has to be presented on April 11th, so I'd better just go ahead on my own. Maybe I'll do the first pose down to just including the hands and see whether vertical or horizontal will work better once I get into the studio and look carefully at the dimensions.

Cynthia Daniel · 03-05-2003, 03:27 PM

I vote for vertical. In general, I find them more graceful. I assume you have closeup shots of her face since in the size images you are showing, the face is so small and far away...very hard to paint from I would think. You can post up to 400w and 600h in the Forum.

Chris Saper · 03-05-2003, 03:57 PM

Hi, Leslie.

I think the major challenge you have is to avoid having this become a painting of a large, really red shirt. Whether it's blowing in the breeze, I can't tell, but it certainly calls attention to her girth, leaving little opportuntity for the face to be the focal point. Do you have an opportunity to take addiitonal photos with different clothing?

If you can't take more photos, you might think of just a head and shoulders format.

Leslie Ficcaglia · 03-05-2003, 05:44 PM

I've been having a lot of trouble getting decent scans with PhotoShop, which is why the resolution of the images is so poor. I think my computer is running out of memory and won't let me kick up the sharpness or size - but I'm upgrading on Friday and hopefully that will address that problem.

I shot two rolls of film of her; these were the best poses and expressions. I was not thrilled at the brightness of the red but she told me that her husband had insisted that she wear that color since it's a signature for her. I was hoping to be able to dull it somewhat, but yes, it's definitely a bit overpowering. After I posted the images here I noticed that just the head shot was quite attractive, but it's to be a 24x30 painting and I didn't want the head to be as large as it would be if I used only that and the shoulders.

I played with the vertical vs. horizontal format this morning and if I wanted to include both hands on the railing,cutting her off just below the shirtline, the horizontal worked better, otherwise the figure would have had to be too small.

Any other suggestions about what to do with that shirt? I suppose I could always just make it white, but whatever I do with it there's an awful lot of cloth involved. Or should I just paint a really large face and shoulders?

Cynthia Daniel · 03-05-2003, 05:56 PM

Here's a version with the red desaturated some. I actualy prefer the verson with one hand on the railing and vertical. To me, it has a more relaxed, graceful appearance.