Dallas

Joanie,

I must say I don't like this picture. The light from flash or other strong source bounces unpleasantly from the girl's forehead and right cheek. The blue of the thing in hair is oversaturated, and the small blood vessels in the right eye make the view bit disturbing.

I don't like the composition either, as the head fills the image almost frame to frame, and this simply makes it look too big.

Joanie,

Very pretty girl - Sharp focus on her eyes - She is separated well from the background - You have used a nice plain background - She has done a very good job of applying her make-up (her eyebrows could be shaped a little better). Her body has been turned at a good angle to the camera.

She has a slight red tint to her face and neck. The tiny catch lights and flat lighting make it appear your only light was the on camera flash? This would account for the location of the reflections from her forehead and cheek. There also appears to be a shadow in the upper left corner of the picture.

She is facing out of the picture, not into it. You would want to place the tip of her nose in the vertical center of the photograph. This will put more space in front of her to compositionally balance your picture. Her face does seem too large. You might want to back up or move in closer and crop into her hair. You want to have her eyes higher in the picture.

Nice shot,

Mark

Thanks for the critiques , I posted this one to help me with my portraits . The thing that bothered me the most is I never had contact lenses show up in any portraits before . You can really see it in the right eye , I tried to PS it but couldn't do too much with it . I shall heed all of your advice , thanks .

Joanie