Showing Improvement

Taking this group's photographs was odd, as it was many of the same girls as the year before, and they wore the same outfits (Black sorority polo, pink undershirts, and jeans). The similarities ended there.

2009: It was my first large group; I had not had experience in placing people, and in retrospect I did not do enough research to prepare myself. We took the pictures in the morning at the May Museum, and there was sun everywhere. It was hard to dodge the sunlight everywhere we went, and so during editing I did the best I could to fix the original problem of sun. I made the absolute huge mistake of placing the taller ladies in front; at the time, my reasoning was that if the taller individuals were lower, sitting or kneeling, there wouldn't be big gaps and it wouldn't look odd to have tall people standing and the shorter gals sitting. But of course, taller girls are proportionally bigger in general, so I ended up making the bigger girls in the foreground appear even bigger than the petite gals in the very, very back.

Tri Phi Sorority Spring 2009

Tri Phi Sorority Spring 2010

2010: I was smart enough to bring just three chairs to help with placement. When we booked the date, we did not know how many girls would actually be showing up. The number ended up being one less than the previous year, though it really didn't matter, as I had planned a better composition this year. I started by having the tallest girls sit in the chairs, then I built around that, having the more petite ladies on the outskirts of the group. Overall, this gave better movement. Having just the three chairs helped prevent the composition from being: lots of heads, and some heads with bodies in the front. The camera was shot down with a little bit more of an angle above the group, as opposed to a dead-on shot, so we didn't have any double chins. Also, the photos were taken around 5:15, in the shade, without light seeping through trees; and we still were able to have a nice but non-distracting background with some nature and a little bit of color. Who doesn't love brick?