Untitled

critique please

Beautiful painting like portrait ................... Good work

beautiful work! and nice composition good lighting! congrats

A fabulous portrait! I love the color and texture of the background and the way the green matches her eyes and the berries in her hair. Her eyes are mesmerizing, I can't stop looking at them. It's very reminiscent of an old painting you'd see hanging in some ancient mansion. I love it!

It is lovely Portrait. Well done. Regards

Very nice, on all counts!

Great fine work!

nice artistic work.

Fabulous and original.

I agree with the previous comments. Reminds me of a painting one might see in a museum or above a distinguished fireplace. Sort of like a Renoit or a Van Gogh. An absolutly wonderful capture and great post processing make this extraordinaire. Very well done Ellen. Very well indeed.

Very good portrait and post process work!

Really a splendid portrait! Good composition and the expression of the eyes is priceless. Best regards, Linh Dinh

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The white of her eyes look overprocessed to me, you should tone them down just a little. And just a nitpick, i don't like the way she fades at the lower part. I think i love everything else about this photo, color and light in particular. I can't decide what to think about the shadow... a 3D element in a painting-like picture. It looks odd but in a good way if that makes sense.

Sorry but thsi si way overdone at least for my taste.
It looks like stitching an over-processed face on a painting background. But again this is about taste.

A very haunting expression which I like. I'd crop a little tighter on the left & right

at first glance I love it, it's unique, original and striking

 

but I can also agree with some of the criticism. I think basically the tones of the face and the tones of the hair and background are so different as to appear like they are completely composited. I wonder if you can maybe tone down the brightness on the face a bit and maybe feather it out across the hair a bit...something like that might help make it all gel together a bit more.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Best,

Max

I think this portrait might have more meaning to photographers than to people in the lay public. I'm reminded of a scene I saw when taking a walk on the beach. Another photographer had set up a tripod way high in the air and had a small boy and girl (about this subject's age) huddled together in the cold on a granite block, as the sun was setting. They were all waiting for the right light, I guess (which IMO had already left). The children were tired and depressed looking. The girl slouched briefly, and the photographer scolded her: "Young ladies don't sit with their legs apart!" I felt so sorry for those kids. It's not the type of portrait I would have taken -- but then again, I'm not a very conventional photographer.

To me, this portrait says, "OK, I'm wearing the Christmas ornament on my head and the dress you picked out for me to wear. I'm sitting for you they way you've asked me to. You've taken the picture. Mom and Dad are happy. Now can I go and play -- please -- I hope?" Otherwise the portrait is very skillfully executed, albeit a bit harsh in lighting. A tighter crop would have made it more intimate. It's simply a portrait of a tired little girl. I admit it's a very interesting photo -- one that commands attention and study.

Upon having viewed more of Ellen O's portfolio, I see many more photos in this theme. They're all quite brilliant, I think.

You make fabulous portrets!!

I won't disagree that this is very nice work, but as with similar works in the photographer's portfolio, the eyes look too large for the face. I'm thinking the photographer may have done an edit>free transform to the eyes in Photoshop? There's nothing inherently wrong with some manipulation, but the result here is that it doesn't look natural in comparison to the rest of the photograph.

It's really very painterly. That's either good or bad according to your taste, but I personally find it very well done. As Croce indicated in his Aesthetic , the mark of good art is to realize the artist's intentions and this certainly seems to do that, at least. It has an Art Nouveau look to me.

Throw in some gold and it would look something like Gustav Klimt's famous portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

There are several things that hit me as I looked at this work and looking back into some of the other work done by Ellen, it sort of confirmed some of those initial impressions.

This photograph really is quite engaging. I very much like the look on the little girl's face and how it rivets us in our place, almost like saying "Yeah!, so what's your problem?" There is just a stark sense to the face that nothing is being hid or embellished. But I also have some reservations about the handling of the total of the image. It might be because of a bias I have as to the direction I felt at first look and the other works in Ellen's portfolio. This portrait doesn't seem to fit the others and by itself I wonder if it was totally intentional. The muted painterly background seems to demand a slightly softer feel for the subject. Here, there is not harmony with the subject and the treatment of the setting. I possibly could find this enticing if it were a theme throughout the Ellen's work that had been developed and seemed to have purpose. Here, it is maybe a hint of things to come, but still leaves me wondering, even though I really do enjoy the portrait.

One of those things that struck me right away with this and with the portfolio, at least as deeply as I went, is that there seems to be influences here from the work of Loretta Lux, http://www.lorettalux.de , and possibly even Maggie Taylor, http://www.maggietaylor.com . There is no criticism in this, but there seems to be roots and the fact that there seemed to be various "efforts" along these lines in the portfolio, I was left with a sense that these images are "tests" and playing with the ideas embodied in the other work. Playing to maybe, hopefully, find ones own voice. The eyes might even be a nod to Mark Ryden, http://www.markryden.com . Anyway, I like the portrait and the expression of the model, wonder about the cohesion with the setting and wonder where Ellen might be headed. I just hope that it will be in her direction and not one that gets the most attention on this site!

I liked it at a distance...but the eyes actively reduce the impact...they scream "Photoshop!"

IMHO, her hair is just a bit too dark on the web version of this image. On lower quality, non calibrated monitors (e.g., my laptop, ie, how I initially saw this image), her hair completely blends into the blackness of her dress.

However, if one views this image on a monitor that resolves dark tones better (my PS computer), or if you apply a smidgen of a lightening curve to her hair, the whole image comes together -- it looks much less contrived.

Being given the important psychological clue that this is actual hair instead of a black featureless mass that looks more like an intentional graphic element suddenly takes away my former concerns about the generally "overcooked" quality of the image, the overly large eyes, etc., and I then like it much better. I suspect that this is one of those cases where the print looks *great* but a 500 pixel wide sRGB jpg just doesn't do it justice. Then again, the artist was probably a lot less concerned about a jpg-for-the-web vs a print and didn't optimize for web display other than converting to sRGB.

Brighten up the hair a bit and see if you agree. Just my $0.02,

Tom M