single photos borobudur with love...

critique are welcome....

Gorgeous shot. My only beef is the same beef that I have with all sunset shots that use fake lighting .... is the fake lighting. It doesn't look natural, the brain knows it's being faked out and it's just not appealing to me, although I see it done so much, Im sure there is a reason why everyone else likes it, it's just not what I like.

Nice balance between the subject and background light. Bravo to you for not settling for the easy silhouette. Maybe the foreground light would be more appealing from a side angle. I agree things look fake when the front light is to frontal, but in general I feel lighting the subject is a great idea check my posts in the Portrait section entitled "Morning Glory" and "Sunrise" My observation is that existing light is often very unattractive. The trick is to come up with with an alternative that has a bit of finesse. In my examples the light on the face of the subject is a strobe from a side angle with gels that roughly match the color of the sunlight at 3200k. The fill light is 5500k. The color and angle of the light is extremely important if realism is a issue. The real would is full of all kinds of reflections and bounces that can be recreated with artificial light to make photographs better. This has a drama that is exceptional.