Chateau Chillon, Switzerland

This is a portrait is quite a bit different from 'Brenda'. The personality of the subject is much less prominent, almost absent, but it has some universality, that most people can relate to.

 

Everybody knows what it's like to look, look out for something, look forward to something, look far ahead and suddenly get the shiver and feel cold.

 

The composition (person off center looking into the frame, shallow DOF) is a classic, maybe too classic.

On the second view I saw the hand in the hair! You may have a lighter copy where this is seen better? This adds the sceen a important value, at least for me.

I left it dark so you'd come back for a second look.

Love how you picked background to high-light her beautiful face.. Also I think if you try croping out about 30% of the left portion... your model would stand out...

Dodge the hand in the hair! Dodge the hand in the hair!

I like the hand as it is. I bet it can look a little dark on a computer monitor (especially without proper gamma correction), but I imagine that in an actual print, the hand is just right.

It was a very dark scene. Late afternoon, late September, raining. To make the brightest part of the hand "white", or near-white, just for the sake of it would have been incorrect, in my opinion. The hand is behind her head, in partial shadow.

 

It's a fabulous thing that the photo.netters have noticed this, because that hand was the part I agonised over the most when deciding where to distribute the grey scale in this image. I made my decision though (for the reasons expressed above) and I'll stick to it. I think it (the hand) makes its statement and doesn't overdo it.

 

Nevertheless, I love this kind of nitpicking. It proves to me that "the devil is in the details". Congratulations all!

 

For the record, I remember she was a Canadian woman and was a very agreeable companion for the few days we saw sights together. We had both been inmates of the Geneva International Youth Hostel (right beside the Rhone river): at least in those days a stern and strictly-run place if there ever was one. "Lights out" was at 10 p.m. and the dorms were very strictly segregated. Sadly, I can't remember her name, but can remember that she was a lovely person.