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 a contendeR, I coulda been somebody.”

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 wants 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.

INSPIRATION

VIDEO COMPONENT.

Using the same set, and setup if possible, create an eight to ten-second video with the subject doing a very small movement.

A boxer slowly takes off their gloves.
A sad person looking out the window with slight movements.
A football player hanging their head or just looking toward the field.

The subject does NOT look at the camera at any time.

Black and white is fine.
Video from DSLR is good, as is phone video.