Designing an image that takes over a room and sets the mood for the family who lives there starts with knowing the minimum and "average" distance of the eventual viewers once the image is placed in the intended location.

It takes knowing how head-size relates to the emotional reaction of a viewer at the appropriate distances. How body language of those in the image needs to relate to how the friends and family of that person see them in "reality". The use of space ... both filled and empty ... to give dimension and "placement" of the subject in the room besides in the image and the frame (if a frame is used).

You need to plan your composition and use of space in the image to move the eye around ... or even use a placement of multiple images in a carefully designed grouping of images to move the eye around. To be aware of the way the color palette of the walls, floors, and furnishings of the room will affect the "feel" of the color palette of the image/s.

This sort of careful design also requires being able to work with your subjects to create those captured "instant moments" that ... when they see them later ... cause them to feel you have captured something both about the individuals and their inter-relations with others that perfectly encapsulates their relationships. The wife and I have done this for our clients even across multiple sessions over a year or more apart.

This couple are professional opera singers. They've spent a lot of time over the years apart, and are very independent people. She's taken care of house & kids while he's been off for months at a time, and earlier on in their relationship, the roles at times reversed. Yet ... they are incredibly close. For all the distance they have suffered through, and for all that they are both very independent people ... this is a close couple. Quietly but intensely so.

The first challenge is to get the relationship "right" ... show each person in a flattering lighting and pose yet reflect the relationship at the same time. They both like bw and brown-tone images so we chose a clothing of black with a low-key studio background. The home is small ... and the image needed to fit a horizontal space. So guess-timating head-sizes this is the first composition I came up with.

That first image, in the room ... commands attention. It's a small room so a 20x24 inch image in a narrow black frame is easily visible everywhere, and the body language and expressions are comfortable to consider while seated or standing anywhere. And they've had friends and family look at it and have tears in their eyes the first time they've been in the room with it. I don't have an image of it in placement ... which I should.

And since then, Miriam (my wife) made a trio of images of their two boys, at the time 12 & 19, that show them separately and together ... and their personalities and relationship as they are (and not "idealized) with all the gentle humor that goes back and forth. Maybe I'll post those later.

What images ... especially in place somewhere ... affect your feelings and thoughts when in that space?

Neil

Glad it's working for you. With all the arguments about this tool or that, realisitically ... most of the cams today can do very nice work, IF they work good in something you want or need, and as noted ... once you understand how that particular tool works.

I've got some years of experience in sorting out Nikon settings (worked with D200, D3, D800, D600), and now some with the Panny GH3. But ... if I picked up say a Canon 5DMkIII, their menus & settings are so different it would take me a while & probably quite a few questions to get it set up the way it would work best for my brain. And for my brain to learn how to understand and work with that camera, it has to go both ways.

It would still be a very good tool for what it does best. Even if at first I sucked with it. As I probably would!

Have fun, shoot some and then work it to death in post to really master the thing. And oh, have fun doing it!

Neil

Frequency Separation for post processing should be mentioned as well. Just described an unusual but completely reversible way to do it by editing it in Photoline:

http://www.pl32.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5330

Definitely worthwhile to look at. Portrait retouch for dummies. Nice idea to pair recognition algorithms with retouching techniques. Then you come to procedures which can also be friendly for video.