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excellent!the light is perfect!

One of the best portraits I have seen in a long time and for so many reasons. It never would have occured to me to to use the toning you used but it works well.

this just one of those shots... perfect fusion of color/light/expression - composition, sexy without being over the edge - offbeat NOT predictable!!!

 

Excellent work.

Very nice Portrait by great composition and good color. very good .thanks for sharing

 

Regards hsp

This is a very well lit and composed portrait of a beautiful girl unfortunatly spoiled by the skin tones of the model , they have a very pronounced green caste, caused by the parasitic reflection from the light bouncing off green background.

Fantastic picture and lights . Regards Dan .

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Fantastic
Regards,Luis

I think Dimitar has lit his model to bring out her best features, and the lighting to my eye is very natural and pleasing. She has a natural and genuine look; e.g., the hat she is wearing seems like a natural for one who chooses to have relatively heavy eyebrows, feminine in a countryside sort of way (hope that makes sense). Her short-cropped hair is not meticulously styled, and that also fits the personality of the portrait. There may be a slightly green bias throughout, but I don't find it distracting at all. The only thing I might change if this were my photo is a small crop on the bottom; I think I'd prefer smooth skin with no hint of shadow that's currently in the lower right. I think this is one of Dimitar's better photos -- it's much more traditional relative to his other portraits and that's generally the direction I tend; I can understand that others might think very differently.

Before I read Stephen's comment, I had also noticed a green cast. Although the photo is excellent as is, my own sense is that a very small increase in magenta (absolutely no more than necessary) would neutralize the excess green without doing any damage to the color balance. I am not sure what amount of magenta needs to be added using Color Balance in Photoshop (or other program), but it would probably be in the single digits.

Congratulations, Dimitar, on a very fine photo.

--Lannie

I just adjusted the color balance by adding magenta in the value of thirteen. I am still not quite satisfied with the colors, since the magenta dulled the green in the clothing and hat without seeming to resolve the green cast in the skin color. Can any of the portrait photographers who specialize in flesh tones weigh in on this one?

--Lannie

It's a nice sort of introspective and gentle looking portrait. I like the the sweeping curve of the hat brim, and the more gentle curve of her shoulder, outlined by the edge of the dress. I also like the way the shadow at lower right adds just the slightest hint of décolleté. I'm not too sure about the colour work, though...it looks a bit off to me.

As I said, it's a nice portrait, but for me, there's really no sense of connectivity with the subject, other than wondering what she's thinking. I prefer more eye contact with the viewer.

I believe Jim Adams is spot on with his critique! The soft lighting on this beautiful model creates a "calming effect" to a me. This one is definitely a step-up from last week's POW!! Well done.

Lannie, I might have at least minimized the green cast in the whites of her eyes. The cast to me might provide a painterly quality if handled with a little more nuance and where it wouldn't feel like a white balance issue. It could just be harmonizing with the background if the color work were adjusted some. If you wanted to affect the skin overall without affecting the clothing and background, you can work with individual color channels. If you add some magenta only to the red channels, the skin will be affected more than the clothing. This would be done by using SELECTIVE COLOR in Photoshop rather than COLOR BALANCE. If COLOR BALANCE gets the desired effect on the skin more than SELECTIVE COLOR, you simply apply COLOR BALANCE and then use the history brush to wipe it off the clothing so the clothing and background remain true to the greener look.

I also feel disengaged from the subject. For me, it's not just about eye contact. I think there are many ways to have a portrait be engaging without necessarily having the subject look at the camera or viewer. A lot of it has to do more with expression than eye contact. Her expression here says "winsome portrait expression" and doesn't seem terribly personal. In THIS PHOTO in Dimitar's portfolio, the woman is not making eye contact, yet I feel much more engaged with her. The perspective goes a long way in creating my relationship as viewer to the woman pictured. There's the age-old nostril problem, of course, but we don't need to get into those details. It's just to point out one possible way to create a connection to the subject without necessarily having direct eye contact.

It looks to me like there was some sort of shadow on the upper part of her forehead coming around and down the far part of her cheek. That is now just kind of a gritty black noise. Maybe the original shadow was lightened or maybe it's a high ISO shot, but it's fairly outstanding as a technical matter. And that's where the green is also kind of pronounced. So I might have worked just with the green in the SHADOW part of COLOR BALANCE but I'd probably rework the shadows from scratch because of how I'm seeing them.

I think there's a nice softness achieved without it seeming airbrushed, as so many portraits do these days. And the photographer has avoided what is to me a very unsightly trend of oversharpening, especially her eyes, which are handled delicately and un-self-consciously. The lighting on the rim of her hat is effective and frames her face nicely.

Good art portrait!

Certainly, one can't miss the color balance here and rarely does green skin work well. My own thought is that maybe it isn't the "actual" color balance that Dimitar intended but the result of not embedding any color profile in the uploaded image--it looks fine if opened without forcing one on it.

As to styling, I am not as forgiving as others when it comes to studio portraits like this. This is not a moment and several issues with the hair should be fixed and add nothing to the character of the photo. There are lots of aspects of photography for one to work on and attention to these details is important.

I do like the lighting although I do think the hot spot on the tip of the nose doesn't help the image and could have been diminished. Otherwise, the image has soft spread of light that models the form but doesn't hide detail. I have no particular issue with the crop, but the area Stephen pointed out is one of those that plays differently depending on the audience. A photographer friend was posting an ad on Facebook and had something similar in a photo, it wasn't objectionable IMO but I told him I thought it was too much for his target audience. He thought I was over sensitive--turned out Facebook would not allow the ad due to what I had pointed out. I don't think this is quite the same, but one has to consider these things if the work is done for others or for a specific audience.

Often these young models do like these types of images, why wouldn't they, she looks beautiful but they rarely do move past that. I think many of the other portraits in the photo stream have a more connected and genuine feel. But this is a studio portrait and it ends up just feeling like one. Pretty girl but not much more to offer the viewer and for some viewers, that is enough.

Basically, it is well done technically but needs a couple of retouching efforts.

As strong as this image is, it is one of the weakest in this artist's portfolio. The most interesting thing in it is the small dark spot over her collar bone. The shot looks staged. Virtually every other shot in the portfolio looks like real life being lived whether the camera is there or not.

I think it is a very capable shot, and I prefer the original to the efforts to 'tweak' the color. The clothing is green stripes and for me it all comes together nicely just as it is.

It does look a little 'stagey' but again, that seems part of what is being done rather than a serious flaw in conception or execution.

All I can say is: * * * * W O W * * * * EXCELLENT portrait!! I am so in love with it! Wonderful job.

Strong composition in elegant and appropriate colors.

I prefer a square image obtained by a crop across the shoulder to just include the hair, though I wonder if the dark tones at the bottom of the image balance the dark tones across the top. To me the interest is in the face.

I adjusted this on a laptop so I hope what I am seeing on my screen is close to my preference. I prefer less green in the skin also.

I knew when I saw this viewers were going to be adjusting color like crazy. It didn't take long. Though the color editing is good that's not what Dimitar was going for. Why not take it how he has presented it? I like it and the off-color he's used. My only nit would be the small hot spot on the tip of her nose. No, the strands of stray hair don't bother me either. I rather like them

I like this picture. This IS a studio shot so it is, by definition, a staged picture. A beautiful model is lit extremely well with a soft quality that highlights her features. I personally love the shifted gaze. The effect is very painterly and "Madonna-like". The skin texture is well handled with a pleasing combination of detail and softness.The hat prop works perfectly here to lend a curving linear element.
Frankly, I wish the frame were shifted up an inch to see a bit more of it to strengthen the effect. Her face feels a touch high in the frame and giving up an inch more from the bottom wouldn't hurt the image composition structure .

The color issue has already been discussed and although often a desaturated, mono-tonish look can be pleasing in portraiture, green/cyan tone is not the best choice here, if, indeed, it was a choice and not just a calibration/color space/color vision problem. A simple enough fix however and a small nit-pik in an otherwise well done studio portrait. Kudos, Dimitar!

 

I'd be among the first to agree that if the skin is going to have a tint or a tone, green would be close to the bottom of my choices. Greenish skin just doesn't carry with it the best of cultural connotations. Nevertheless, when I compare the two versions sided by side as done by John above, it's not that I'm put off by the green but that I find the more normal flesh-toned version to be too strong. I find it odd that I would react that way, and I find it hard to explain, but I still like Dimitar's original better. Can it be that the adjustment is simply too real, and that the sublime unreal aspect of Dimitar's original is an important part of his photograph?