John decided after many years to take a trip to southern Germany. It was rumored he had a great grandfather who had lived there and had been wealthy and powerful. While visiting a local hotel he discovered a painting on the wall, and sure enough, it was his relative! Further investigation revealed his great-grandfather Gustav was known throughout the parts as, well, a liar and a cheat who managed to steal his way to fame and fortune. Unfortunately for John, the fortune was gone and all he ended up with was this picture.
None of the above is true, of course. His name isn't John and I have no idea who the guy in the painting is. We were at a conference in southern Germany - that part is true - and I asked Dan to pose in front of this picture so I could play with my flash. Then we were looking at the shot, we discovered he looked like he could be related to the guy in the picture. And there you have it. :-)
Post - I agree that the straps were annoying - I didn't think to ask him to remove them. One was an ID tag thingie, one was attached to his Sony camera (I cloned out the Sony on the strap). I'm not good enough at cloning to go for the straps in their entirety nor do I think that would have been legal. Still, I kinda got a kick out of the shot, and the subject did, too!
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Place: 56 out of 170 Avg (all users): 5.8269 Avg (commenters): 5.5000 Avg (participants): 5.6197 Avg (non-participants): 6.0000 Views since voting: 992 Views during voting: 299 Votes: 156 Comments: 10 Favorites: 0
Lol but I really liked the story. Should never have confessed it to not be true. Sooo many similarities... the nose, almost the facial hair, John's modern day tie (hehe), and each has a glint in the eyes. Pretty wild catch here.
I like this double portrait. It really does look like they could be related. I like everything about it except the straps hanging around Dan's neck. They really annoy me, and I don't usually get annoyed by photos. I think it's because everything else is so good. Anyway, to me, the straps break up the composition and take away from the portrait nature of the image. If you were taking a portrait of a photographer the straps would be okay, but I would want to see the camera too. I see that you got a decent score on this, so I guess this wasn't a big deal for the other voters.
I would have liked to see him looking at the painting rather than at the camera. It also would have worked better without the straps hanging round his neck.
I find it difficult to get the story without the title... perhaps there might have been another pose besides just a person standing in front of a portrait to make it more intriguing?
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