Woman in Hotel Reception
(click for larger image)

How do you go about photographing people in big rooms without them appearing very insignificant? I'm never happy with my results :-(.

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), July 20, 2000

Answers

try moving closer to them with a wide lens. you could use a really wide lens, keep them somewhat away from the edges to avoid overly distorting them, and they wouldn't even know you were taking their picture.

didn't phillip greenspun talk about doing this with his realy wide 14mm? or was it another page i read somewhere? no-- i think it was phillip.

-- miachael meyer (mnm207@is9.nyu.edu), July 20, 2000.

Allan,

illuminate the subject! think spotlight on a stage

-- Edward Kang (ekang@cse.nd.edu), July 20, 2000.

try moving closer to them with a wide lens

I think this shot was taken with my TS-E 24mm f3.5L lens, which is the widest I own. Maybe it really is time to splash out £2,300 ($3,700 or so) on the 14mm...

I could probably have gone a little closer and further to the left, but I wanted that lamp included: chains that lead to nowhere frustrates me in images. I'm unhappy about the table as it is. (Btw: it is only in the scan that the lady's feet are cut off.)

Moving further back (and using a longer lens) was not an option: I had my back to the wall.

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), July 20, 2000.

illuminate the subject! think spotlight on a stage

Hm, this seems to make sense. Buy bigger flash heads! (And use them: I had an 550EX in the bag.) I think the reflections might have been nasty unless I could organise a very long flash lead and kept the flash to the far left (or to the right? on top of that computer monitor?).

One image where it would almost certainly have worked well is this one (I wonder if I can fix it digitally!?):

Thanks, Ed! I'll try it out.

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), July 20, 2000.

I would have tried to get on a chair or table and pointed the camera down more, to cut out the great white (distracting) expanse of ceiling. Although the print (which you say shows more floor) might be better balanced.

-- Steve Leroux (steve@bigadventures.com), July 20, 2000.

A wider lens is not the answer. The subject has to be closer to the lens. Either you have to move closer, she has to move closer to you, or both. A wider lens will mean you have to be even closer.

Also, since this is a posed photo and has a fair amount of formality to it, she should be in the light. The light here is wrong for the look of this photograph, she's in the dark and there are hot spots all around her. It would work nicely without her as an AD-type shot.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), July 21, 2000.

Your subject can either be the room (with the person there to add interest or show scale) or the person (with the room as the setting), but it can't be both simultaneously.

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), July 21, 2000.

Actually, I'll amend that: You can get away with it if you plan to print large enough so that it can be viewed both from a distance and close up.

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), July 21, 2000.

I knew I should have brought an 8×10 :-)

Thanks for the suggestion: my lab does wall-sized prints so maybe I'll try that with a decent image. I think 2×3 meters is a good size -- looks great as a poster.

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), July 21, 2000.

subject?

I agree with John about the intent of this image. What is the subject of the image? The room or the person? If the latter then the person should have been very close to the camera probably a half body shot with the rest of the room receding into the distance. A little shorter focal length lens would have enhanced this idea of this receding space. But as is it is just a snapshot of a room with no appeal. Too much clutter with nothing interesting to keep you there. Very undramatic lighting also. On the otherhand if this is a shot of the room, what is this one person doing here? Just another distraction. A few people, some sitting reading and some standing in the background talking to show the warmth of the setting would make a better composition. This image is too static and very dim. I hope this doesn't offend you. It is only my interpretation of this image. James

-- james (James_mickelson@hotmail.com), July 22, 2000.

I like quite a few things about the picture. With the proportions involved, it seems like a picture of the room, with the person added as an "accent." Certainly nothing wrong with that, if that is what you are after. Two things that I would like to be a little different. The one splash of light on the ceiling is a little distracting, since otherwise there seems to be a nice gradation from light to dark, from the door to behind the desk. Also, her face is darker than I would like; since it is turned toward the camera, I would like to see more detail. If it has to be dark, maybe a profile? Some of this may be my rather dark monitor, and may look different to others.

-- Paul Harris (pharris@neosoft.com), July 24, 2000.

Also, I think the image would be greatly improved if she was facing towards the center of the image instead of away from it.

-- Steve Leroux (steve@bigadventures.com), July 25, 2000.