Getting the Right Layout

The layout of a portrait can make or break a portrait.  While occasionally a photo is perfect as is, most of the time small changes can be made to the layout to improve the overall appearance of the portrait.

Here's the original photo:

Looking at the photo, there were several things to take into consideration.  Namely,

1. The final portrait was to be vertical.
2. The subject working on her newest quilt is the main focus of the portrait.
3. The quilt in the background was important to the subject.
4. The subject's hair was lost in the dark background.

With these thoughts in mind, the photo was cropped roughly as follows:

As can be seen, most of the quilt on the wall is cut off, but this will be corrected when the drawing is finalized.  Also, since the hand is almost on the bottom margin, the foreground quilt will be extended down slightly to make the layout more pleasing.

Comments by L.M. Hornberger

"With a good photo, this step is quite easy.  With photos that have problems, this step can take almost as much time as the drawing part.  With this photo, the only correction was to move the quilt in the background over a bit."

Next Step:  Enlarging and Transferring