Pic.
A very small article about it.
Whaddya think? Can’t say I like it much.
Barack’s face looks a little fat (wide angle lens distortion?).
Not flattering of the younger girl.
There’s a red tie (untacked?) floating in a huge sea of white clothes.
The background is too busy for my taste.
If you hadn’t said anything, I never would’ve guessed it was a Leibowitz pic.
Looks more like they got it taken at Sears.
There’s something weird about the heads. They look fake, like something you would see at Madame Tussaud’s. Other than that, it’s a nice photo- although I think Bo should be in it, too.
I’m not an expert on Leibowitz, but liked the heavily conceptual stuff she did at Rolling Stone. However, last month when I thumbed through a book of her portraits of women, it just seemed like a bunch of pictures.
One small thing that bothers me about the First Family pic how the younger daughter’s right hand lines up with the door frame and sorta blends with the color of the next room. Not a big thing, but hey, it’s a high profile photo gig. There’s also a picture frame around the girl’s head.
Leibowitz has a rep (at least in recent years) for splicing different photos together, so this could very well be a composite, with some faces Photoshopped on.
I’ve never thought Annie Liebowitz is all that talented. She’s somehow rode on some kind of assumption she has some kind of elite place in the echelon of entertainment photographers, but to me her work is stilted, over-produced, and uninspired. You could find better photographers in the classifieds.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it was photoshopped. Its a very unflattering portrait of the younger daughter.
First comments out of my mother, “Why is he slouching? That’s not good posture. Why are his wife and daughters holding hands and arms, but he looks like he’s about to leave that chair and go to a meeting?”
A totally amateurish photo. Whoever thinks Liebowitz is a talented photographer is suffering from a serious case of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
The background is way too cluttered and distracting. Some of those things on the walls should have been removed or Photoshopped out.
Malia’s placement is all wrong. She’s towering over everyone else, and strangely draped around her mother, like she’s about to fall off the chair . . . or get a piggy-back ride . . . or pick Michelle’s pockets.
And where’s Bo?
Just about every professional photo is Photoshopped, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. You always have to make minor adjustments in color or contrast or eliminate some minor flaw. So yes, it was probably Photoshopped.
Pretty ordinary, but not bad. The only “flaw” that struck me was the older daughter leaning too much on Mom. Looks like she’s about to crush her.
I have to say, however, that in the article linked from that one Michelle Obama is a pretty good Hula hooper.
The first thing I noticed, before ever reading this thread, was the background. If she wanted to include the room because of its history, she should have chosen something like a fireplace that would have allowed the family to be the focal point.
There’s something weird about the hand on Barack’s shoulder. It almost looks like a disembodied hand just floating there, because of the white door frame right behind it, rather than belonging to the young daughter.
If you look at the original size photo, what is that weird red thing sticking out of the left arm of the older daughter? It’s like a tag or piece of tape was stuck on her arm.
They have names, you know. “Older daughter” is Malia; “younger daughter” is Sasha.
That was my first thought exactly. Yes it’s a nice picture of the sort that most families would be happy to hang in their home, but that’s all it is: nice. Not “famous photographer captures the First Family.” And Sears at least wouldn’t have so much clutter in the background. Closing those doors and removing the chairs and table in the back would’ve been a good start.
Also, Barack’s head looks huuuge. The more I look at it, the bigger it gets.
Correct. An easy way to remember is that they were named in alphabetical order (M before S, Malia is older than Sasha).
The photo’s OK, I guess, but it’s not all that. Malia’s white dress with the stark black lines on it is kind of distracting, and I don’t like the fact that there’s a frame right behind her head. Everybody else looks OK. The background is a bit too busy for a photo like this.
Sheesh, it’s like one of those “how many things can you find wrong with this picture” puzzles.
Let’s make a list.
–Barack has a weird disembodied hand on his shoulder.
–Except it’s not really Barack. It’s some other guy wearing one of those rubber whole-head Halloween masks over his normally-sized head.
–Sasha is not in the photo either. Some random kid is there instead.
–The random kid is wearing a picture frame as a hat.
–The regular wallpaper has been replaced with one of those freaky-deaky optical illusion patterns.
–Malia’s chin has been drastically enlarged.
–“Barack,” the random kid, and Malia have been made much larger in relation to Michelle, making her look like a pipsqueak.
–The hair on the left side of Michelle’s head has been airbrushed out and replaced with a picture of a black hole.
–It looks like Malia just shat a pink flower.
–Which doesn’t seem to bother the fireplace guy who is committing statutory rape.
Yeah, exactly. Or it looks like one of those times when a group photo is being taken, and the group urges someone to get in the photo, and the person protests that they’re not really a member of the group, but is persuaded to be in the photo anyway, and someone puts a hand on his shoulder to make him look more “included.”
And what’s up with those chairs at the upper left? Who are they for? Was someone sitting in them and then shooed away for the photo? Does anybody ever sit in them? Poor lonely chairs.
ETA: Who’s ashes are in that urn on the mantel? I hope they’re Andrew Jackson’s. That would be cool.
Overall, I like it. It does break barriers in being a well-constructed , yet informal look to an official portrait, with the children being happily involved with their parents. The main failure is that Michelle’s dark dress doesn’t match the intended lighter feel of the photo; kind of a visual hole, and that makes Malia (yikes, that girl is sure tall for her age, and so pretty) overwhelm her Mom in that draping position.
But, the warmth of their family makes me smile.
Oh my goodness, that is unfortunate. Worse than phantom objects sprouting out of people’s heads.
(To clarify, when I said Photoshopped before I didn’t mean that it had been touched up –everything is – but that it was heavily edited, including adjusting elements that most professional photographers would take care of while shooting rather than in post-production.)