BRIEF:
The client is a local/regional magazine. They are associated with a few trade associations but focus a lot on the groups that help people who have lost everything and still made it through.
The article is about how people deal with massive disappointment. It is written in a positive point of view, but they want the image to grab the viewer and help them follow into the story.
Your photograph is going to be used to illustrate that story.
Your ‘subject’ is a person who possibly found themselves at the top of the world, then had that world crumble around them. They are still well known, but the failure is evident throughout their life.
Think an Olympic athlete who was ‘supposed’ to win. Or an Investment Broker hero who made a famously bad call and lost billions.
Your job is to bring the dignity they deserve into the image.
You will have to fashion ‘the story’ yourself, but make it a good one.
A portrait that exudes an emotional power that gives us a glimpse into the world of another person, and gives more meaning to the words of the author.
She wants
One who coulda been a contender, but is now facing disappointment.
A great line from the movie “On The Waterfront”… Marlon Brando’s character has just learned that his brother had been setting him up to lose, so he could bet against him and win. Fixed fights. Brando realizes that he has no chance of ever overcoming this charade, and the realization hits him like a ton of bricks.
“I coulda been somebody, I coulda been a contender…”
Pathos. The agony of personal defeat.
The lost dreams and total defeat are evident in his face
Now we are going to take this line… and make it into something else.
“I coulda been a contender…” for what?
Boxing?
IT Guy of The Year?
Football Kicker?
Sports Announcer?
Baker?
Sorrow and defeat… and a complete misdirection of attention.
Using a model or someone you know, let’s do a shot of dejection, disappointment, and dreams fizzling out like a Diet Rootbeer opened while it was still warm… gone.
Using light and shadow, composition and framing illustrate the line “I coulda been a contender…” The client is a business magazine, and they are asking you to photograph a subject who has lost it all and wanting to be a warning to others in their industry… this could happen to you. This will be a very emotional photograph, one that will make us realize all that was lost and all that it means.
It is NOT to be a grab shot or a photograph of a losing team in the dugout. You must design this shot and produce it perfectly.
Black and White. Horizontal (Landscape). It will be a double truck so you have to leave some room on one-half of the image for text. It is important that the art director can insert a full page of text over your image.
The shot does NOT have to be OF a person… but a person in the photograph is imperative to sell us on the disappointment and sorrow of watching one’s dreams go up in smoke.
FORMER STUDENT’S WORK
