Untitled

http://www.keane-eyes.com/

The face stands out in terms of light and texture, and because I like the expression, I like this very much. I usually take and view landscapes rather than portraits, and I'm amazed that someone can look at this and have it shout "Photoshop." To my eye, it's a wonderful portrait.

Masterpiece.

I see indifferent attitude of model towards photographer. Girls face and eyes are empty. Processing effords are not important when the picture does not say much about the model. Sombody said the girl is tired. I would agree provided the tired person is boring.

the eyes expression of the model is poor and the brightness of the face is much and theres is not relationship between tones in face and background .

This is fantastic work, and very compelling to look at. However IMHO the eyes seem to belong to someone older and the brightness of the face is a little to intense for me. Yet I keep looking at it. I guess thats good.

 

Sincerely,

Holger

The definition of "portrait" is very broad. It is, by nature of being art, very personal in interpretation. This type of portrait to me falls in the category of photos made intentionally to look different, as if to say: "look at what I can do with lighting, props and photoshop." Nothing wrong with this approach.
At the other end of the spectrum is my personal approach to doing portraits: to take myself out of it as much as possible, so the viewer in totally engaged with the subject and not thinking so much about the props and techniques. Neither approach is "better." They are just different.

Upon first (and second) glance, I felt there was something wrong with this picture. I haven't figured it out yet, but it has to do with the eyes, I think. In playing with it a little I found an interesting crop which in this shot works well for me. How about the rest of you.
Crop the right side of the picture away leaving just one eye and half the nose and mouth....No, I am serious. Cropping the left half of the photo away doesn't work at all. Some how this makes a very interesting image and one that I might just try some time with one of my own shots.
Now having said this, I'll read the other comments posted. I didn't want to be persueded by others views.

Willie the Cropper

I find the image very striking at first glance and like it a lot, but I also share John Kelly's observation about her eyes - they appear too "modern" for the period look of the image.

I would also remove the shadows cast by the added headdress to maintain consistency with the shadowless body. The string of pearls can also be better blended.

I like the overall idea of the portrait. But I'm disturbed by her eyes when I'm looking at. They are too artificial appearing the girl to look like a doll. From artistic point I like it.

In my humble opinion, this thread is starting out in a really wonderful way, with many key issues already raised in the first set of comments, so i'll gladly join in and thank the Elves for this week's POW pick, because I see it as a really great opportunitiy to share views about many things - including Photoshop manipulations on portraits.
I saw the link very appropriately posted by John Kelly - http://www.keane-eyes.com/ - and I think this link says it all, in fact. Ellen O's POW, as I see it, is a manipulation, where eyes are PURPOSEFULLY exagerated, which puts it in line with one of the numerous artistic trends of portrait photo-manipulations and naive paintings. One could also remember another slightly different trend : caricatures... for those who would think of caricatures being some sort of a minor art, then how would you judge the works of Fernando Botero, at the higher end of this "distorted visions" branch of the art tree...? See here : http://tuxcafe.org/~ten20727ete06/repertoires_ete06/dube_amelie/site/botero/particularite.html
What I'm basically saying, is that it is being ignorant of painting and drawing traditions, and ignorant of naive art and caricature traditions, to dismiss this picture BECAUSE of the exagerated eyes.... The same goes for the painterly background : it is totally acceptable IF one remembers that this is as much a painting as a photo. But then again, I have experienced myself that simple lens distortions du to the use of a 24 or 28mm shooting down on a head are very well known, and yet are very far from most people's taste.
In short, most people out there still like to see "normal" - "undistorted" faces in portraits - especially photographic portraits, because they seem more real ! But any distortion or exageration should be welcome by artists as one of the many possible artistic interpretations available in portraiture - no more, no less.
With that said, how does the present eye distortion and flat painterly background impact our vision...? As I see it, the technical mix of a photographic face - yet distorted by manipulation - inserted in a painterly background is a mix that puts the real child back in her own fiction. Then the shadow under her chin adds to the separation between a 3D photographic look and the flat-looking 2D background, and that too makes perfect sense in the present context. And so does the "seemingly 3-dimentionnal" drawing-like crown on top of her head, which happens to be at the junction between the face's 3D rendering and the background's 2D rendering. The exagerated eyes seem to symbolize the astonishment of childhood facing either reality either the child's inner fiction-world... Alice in Wonderland again, as simple as that. So not very original after all.... till you start looking in those eyes...!! They really have the sort of depth and eteral feel that you may find in the Mona Lisa - except for the glorious fact... that she looks a little bored to me ! Which is what I personally love about it !
In fact I see this image as a very well composed and artistic picture using all possible means available to communicate to us the following (ironical and cynical) message : WE frame our kids with a painted frame of toys and little stars whereas THEY are in fact much more aware than we'd like to know, of all the misery, sadness and boredom on this planet !
Look how matured her eyes are like, in contrast with this fairy-tale-like background ! "Reality is not as nice as fiction", that's what this little girl's portrait whispered in my ear - and I find her as well as her message absolutely lovely...
In terms of aesthetics, I'd say that all this space around her is necessary to make her feel lost in this little world of fairies... But then I'd agree with a previous comment, that the details in the blacks are quite important here, and that this - as all portraits of this kind - needs to be seen printed at a size where the head would more or less be the actual girl's face size... With that said, I love the concept, and would certainly congratulate the artist for this piece - which would not work half as well as this if the eyes were less impressive...

Having no personal knowledge of (or interest in...) the subject, I have to say that this picture fails to offer anything of value to me.

If this was a painting then I may (or may not) be interested in the decisions made by the artist in (mis)representing the subject as he/she chose to, or perhaps let myself consider the technique, talent and imagination on display. The picture could then engage my mind on that level, even if I found the subject matter itself to be of little interest.

But this is simply a photo of a girl with beads on her head. As such, it's trivial, irrelevant fluff to me. Nothing more, nothing less.

I love Gustav Klimt's work and this portrait reminds me so many of his portait paintings ! I think this was intended and if so it works for me :)

what a beautiful image, classic!!!

Ellen,
Very unusual artwork, reminds me masters of the middle-age.
I like its strangeness, deformation, composition and color choice.
This image is my favorite from your portfolio.
Regards,
Dina

perfect!!!

I agree with JDM, the first thing I thought when I saw this is that it looked like a Gustav Klimt painting. Very cool!

Yes, it reminds a bit on Sezession or Art Deco style.

I don't know, the more I look, the more I see a 'Diane Arbus' in a lot of her work- a certain eerie-strangeness fascination.
I also don't like on-camera flash shots, (flattens round objects) having professionally shot in studio for decades before getting into fine art only. Makes me think the artist is a beginner but she doesn't seem to be (yes, I call photographers artists, even if they don't).

The first thing I thought was "very Celtic" only to browse Ellen O and found she's Irish living in Ireland!

 

99.99% of portraits bore me to death and are only interesting to the family of the portrayed. Not this one. I don't even consider this really a portrait, but more of an artwork as much arranged as any tabletop shot. I like the square format and the space to either side of the subject, emphasizing her thinness and isolation. The darkness of her hair contrasts wonderfully with her pale complexion. The overall darkness of everything on her makes her face pop and that's really the interesting part of a picture of a person, isn't it? The stray hairs make her seem uncontrived and the headpiece with its grays speaks of an attempt at a gaiety wished for but not found. I like the colors and gradations in the background, suitable for isolation but neither boring nor eye-catching.

 

Sure, the whites of the eyes may be a little too white. But again, I go back to this not really being a portrait as much as an arrangement. With that as the goal, I think Ellen created something marvelous.

 

I would be happy to frame it and put it on my own wall, simply for the artistic values.

This is a fantastic picture that transends the genre of portrait. Many times I'm completely baffled by the comments on this site. If people would take the time to look at the artist's other work, they would immediately see her intentions, and how well she carried them out. Even without doing that, it's obvious that this photographer knows what she is doing. As in most comments about artistic work, it says more about the commenter than the artwork.

I like the blessed creatures, good one.

Excellent!!

Great portrait,beautiful colors.