Scale is hard to communicate honestly in a photo — most viewers have no reference point for "big" unless you give them one. So instead of shooting the skeleton straight on, the shot pushes in close on the skull, letting it fill most of the frame in the foreground while she stands small and in-focus on the staircase behind it. That size gap between foreground and background is what actually sells the scale, not just cropping wide and hoping the size reads on its own.
The choice to keep her small in the frame was deliberate too. She could've stood right next to the skull for a more traditional pose, but pulling her back into the mid-ground lets the full skeleton unfold behind her — spine, ribs, the whole shape of the thing — while she still reads clearly in her cap and stole.
It's one of the reasons a graduation portrait doesn't have to happen on a lawn or at a landmark — sometimes the most memorable backdrop is whatever unexpected thing your campus happens to have lying around.
Location: University of California, Berkeley.
