IvetII

This portrait is sweet, quiet and shows a girl with a woman�s look :)

Congratulations

Tanya, what a nice portrait as everyone has already said. I really like the shot, and I enjoy your portfolio. Keep up the excellent work. Also, Ivet has stunning eyes, very beautiful--which are illuminated in this portrait by your selection of a complimentary background color. Great shot, I am learning from your example.

Great portrait. Ivet is captured superbly, simply and the use of colour and light works so well.

 

Thanks for sharing

Certainly an arresting image; the beauty of the model, the quality of the light, and the colors of the surroundings all work together to make one want to stare at this picture for awhile. However, after spending some time looking, it wears on me a little. There's something that feels not quite natural about it, a certain staged and processed quality that brings to mind a high-budget advertisement illustration more than anything else. It's as if every detail is presented for maximum visual impact rather than as part of some broader message about who this person is. That being said, it's a rare photographer that can put together such a luxurious visual experience as this one.

Seems like the ring, eyes and background were color-coordinated in Photoshop.

There is an element of pathos in her looks,that makes the portrait so appealing.Composition,exposure,light are flawless.Color contrast is very well-done.

Fist Tanya thanks for sharing this picture. Even though it�s a flat lighting but still it looks three D, suited for this picture. Composition and color is good, relax, I feel like I already know her personality. Excellent picture overall. Because when I look at the face her eyes are drowning me toward the sitter. And that�s what I call an art. Nice job and say thank you to our little Ivet.

The eyes draw you in immediately. I love the green background, matching her eyes. Nice colors, tones & lighting. I love it!

For me this works. The different horizontal lines, all in this special green. Not natural probably and softened, but they give a good background to the unsymetric head and arms of the girl which form different strong lines going down through the face to the elbow and crossed by the line given by the arms. The green is taken up by the eyes and the ring. These eyes!!!.

What strikes me about this image is what appears to be a wide-angle perspective that helps to separate the subject from the background, which stands in contrast to the rather flat perspective that we often see in shots taken with longer lenses.

Technically well executed and at first quite captivating, but the more I look at the image the more it seems WAY over-processed and less sincere.

 

Malls in this area of the country often have kiosks showing off and advertising local highschool seniors shot by portrait studios with a nearly identical style. This in no way taking away from the technical execution of the image, but it's a common style around here.

Re-posted due to a glitch in moderating software.. This was accidently deleted:

"I'd prefer to see a darker left cheek (subject's right) and a more gradual light falloff into the background. The light drops off suddenly around the ear. The hair loses detail as it blends in with the background. The upper background looks very jagged. I can see why it was done--smooth foreground versus rough background makes for some tension in the photo. I don't think it works because the background isn't sharp and textured. None of these are that distracting, but they might be areas for improvement."

Answered by David Roossien (david.roossien@sbcglobal.net) from 67.36.57.25 on August 21 22:20,

She has a wonderful, deep expression with a tinge of sadness. Beautifully lit and the colour combination is exceptional.

This is pretty bland. It is commercial photography, like something a wedding/portrait

studio would produce. Compare it to this shot by Alec Soth. Exact same content, much

different result. Soth gets beyond the facade and lets us look in.

 

Ms. Gramatikova should drop the Photoshop nonesense and dig deeper. This is too pretty

and shallow. It tells us nothing of life.

The photo is full of internal tension - as if she would burst crying right now. As we could write in a school composition - 'imprint of hardships and straits'... Actually it is fine, but 50-80% of its success is the little model herself.

This is a very strong image that for me provokes both positive and negative responses. The negative ones concern mainly technical details, the positive mainly the content.

 

The theme of the photo -- the girl's expression and pose and the complexity of her underlying emotions -- is wonderful. Look at the depth in her eyes. This is a fine portrait, rich with potential metaphors, and not, I think, only because the model is beautiful. Also, as I think only Mona has pointed out so far, the composition is extremely well crafted. The three triangles formed by her arms, shoulders and head are pleasing and well balanced, and they naturally direct the eye to her face. These are laid over an equally appealing ground consisting of three large bands of green. The angle of her head seems just about right, though perhaps it could be slightly less tilted. Her hand looks natural, perhaps a bit tense, but in keeping with the overall feel of the image.

 

In all these respects, the image is very strong, much better than the run-of-the-mill commercial portrait photography to which several people have compared it and far more interesting than the image posted above for comparison. In terms of theme and composition, my only criticism is that I find it too tightly cropped. I think Tanya could have left a bit more space around Ivet on all four sides, especially the bottom.

 

Technically, though, when I take a second or third look at the picture, I see quite a few distracting flaws. Some of these were already pointed out by David Roosien. For instance, on my monitor, the dodging/burning on her face looks very clumsy. The shadow along the left side of Ivet's face (on our right) looks unnatural and uneven; her temple seems a different tone and color from her lower cheek. The right side of her forehead (on our left) looks very odd, the way her skin suddenly changes in tone and color, and there are a few odd-looking splotches around the circumference of her face (perhaps due to jpeg compression). Blur seems to have been applied to much of the image, but a spot was missed above her right elbow, and there's an odd dark patch below her left armpit.

 

But all of this is just nitpicking about post-processing steps that could easily be redone. Fundamentally, the picture is excellent.

No doubt, that's a beautiful portrait of a gorgeous girl with amazing eyes. What catches immediately the viewer's eyes is obviously the great homogeneity of colors and tones: her eyes (center of the photo - one of the default, like I'll explain it below), the ring, the space around her. This side of the photo is very well controled and achieved.

This portrait doesn't look like a spontaneous one, her stare (not empty but powerful) and the place of her head on her arms seem to be thought in order to increase her expression. That's not a default in fact, that makes an interesting contrast between strongness of her look and immobility of her body. But I guess that catching such eyes in a stopped movement would have been outstanding.

IMHO, (and according to some personal taste) three points could be improved :
The first one is the fact that tones of her skin looks a bit *warm*. Maybe because of the large part of green tones in the whole frame, - don't know - but a slight adjustment on red level works. (see attached file). Moreover, this adjustment doesn't disturb the light effect on Ivet's face.
Another point is the fact that the foreground looks oversoftened. Shadow of her right arm (the one on the left) is obviously softer than edges of her face. I guess the camera used doesn't allow such a short depth of field. At contrary, the background is more grainy.
The last point, and the main for me, is that I find a lack of originality in the composition. That's a banal one for me, neither a bad one nor a very good one. The catching point of the composition is her face because of her exceptionnal eyes (even if they're worked on) and the light Tanya has added to increase focus on them. But her face is near the center of the photo, I'd have liked to see it centered off on the right to play with the delicate line drawn by her horizontal arm. I'd have liked to see a light coming more from this side as well: front light works but that's not IMHO the best one.

It's nevertheless a beautiful portrait of a gorgeous girl with amazing eyes.

It's a very beautiful and well composed picture of a beautiful young person, but it goes further than a simple representation of her face. Very strong.

 

As for something still potentially open for improvement:

 

1) the arms and face look a bit redish on my monitor - yes, no...?

 

2) I feel, that the back of the hair is unnaturally blurred.

 

3) Although the post-processing is clever and quite carefully done, I can't help but to wonder whether a milder post processing wouldn't help the essence of this picture's beauty to sqtand out better - in a less artificial way.

 

I'd be very interested in seeing the original photo, or another version with milder post-processing.

 

But please, despite this small criticism, keep in mind I just LOVE this shot. And these are just very minor suggestions to improve little nits, so that this picture can become the true masterpiece it ought to be.

 

A wonderfully well "felt", clever and daring portrait.

Ok, Yann, you beat me to it, writing at the same time as I was writing...:-) So I'll add this: I think the version you just posted is perhaps a little extreme in the removal of the reds on the skin, but something between Tanya's POW and your amended version should be just fine. Regards.

I like this image! The moment I opened it, I could immediately feel the gaze of the young lady and there and then is where the image connects to me. The look is deep...

Frankly, if I had not read the remarks about the postproduction work, I couldn't notice them, I guess I was blinded by her gaze, anyway, are those "flaws" really that critical?

- steve

This is a fine example of a tasteful way to use PhotoShop. The effects are subtle enough to appear not to be there, but close inspection show that a great deal of PS work went into it. This is clearly an example of somebody who didn't just pick effects from menues until she saw something she liked, but rather an artist who thought carefully about what she wanted before she began.

The image is very strong, much better than the run-of-the-mill commercial portrait photography to which several people have compared it and far more interesting than the image posted above for comparison. I agree wholeheartedly! Having said that, I sense some contempt around - towards easy transformed, PS-sexied images, as opposed to "good old days" of darkroom experience: pushing/pulling, hand-printing, dodging/burning, toning...

It's all about where one draws the line. Ironically, the dodged and burned prints of yesterday (and today for the die-hards ) are simply today's PS sex-i-fied images. Is there more control,..., yes. Can you go over the line , absolutely. The real purist, film or digital alike, would argue that photographic brilliance begins and ends at exposure. I cannot subscribe to this becuase by doing so I would have to ignore the craft of the darkroom OR computer station.

 

This image was selected because it rides the fence. Was there manipulation, yes. Was it too much,..., for me,...., no. For me, I cannot discount the visceral impact of seeing the image for the first time when I logged on today. The composition, colour , model, pose, and subject are strong. The depth of field is a bit suspect, but I am stretching.

 

This discussion is universal, and cannot be polarized to simply film vs digial, darkroom vs computer, oil vs acrylic, naturally aspirated vs turbocharged, black and white vs colour,....

 

I enjoyed this image and found it quite striking.

 

My two cents

 

John

While technically well done, to my eye the subject looks overly posed and lacking substantial connection or emotion. Among a group of good portraits I would likely pass this one by in short order to view others for that very reason. With so many other glowing critiques in this discussion, my opinion must be errant somehow... perhaps it's just the way I feel today or something. I'll have to revisit this again another day. Regards, Steven.

The picture I posted for comparison was shot on a simple, elegant 8x10 camera. It is a

spontaneous glimpse into the interior world of a child. Using the table cloth as part of the

composition is an interesting detail. The little girl is not overly cute or coached. The

picture is both emotionally and photographically down to earth.

 

This shot could have been taken by any number of people on pnet. You would not know

who took it unless you were told. All this digital portraiture looks the same.

 

The idea is predictable and contrived. It begs to be noticed. It tries too hard. It is like

someone who wears loud clothes and talks too much at a party. It does not seduce, it

hustles. It is as if the photographer were trying to somehow PROVE this is a good picture.