Isabella B.

just amazing! outstanding texture and impact.

Beautiful capture and processing.

Outstanding portrait. Very original. I really enjoy the way you have managed your light. Her eyes are fantastic. Very well done (7/7)

Amazing!  Quite a beautiful shot - with all technique and artistry done well to achieve it.  And most of the technique I don't know- but would love to know ;)

Me gusta como usted ha manejado la luz y los tonos suaves, ha logrado resaltar la piel y los ojos claros de la niña de una forma muy agradable.

My english is no good, I am sorry.

Regards.

Great mix of lighting and expression on the model's face.  They form a slightly eerie combination.  Also, kudos on the well controlled focus.  It adds a lot to this shot.

The tone is absolutely beautiful. She is a very pretty child but what you have done with the light really accentuates the sweetness.

What a fantastic shot! Cute little model and perfect execution. Contrary to what can be read in the comment above, this portrait doesn't let me with a feeling of sweetness. I rather feel unconfortable. Maybe because of the light coming from below and the desaturation which gives her some sort of vampiric appearance. Not to mention her haunting eyes. Congrats for this very powerful shot and best regards, Alain

Smashing Portrait of this young girl.

very well lit and of pleasant soft appearance, fading but that has given a wonderful touch to this image and its composition.

The little girl with her eyes contact is very attractive and having a great pleasant effect on the viewers, the tone is also nice, the way it is for me, this portrait work is very creative.

Thank you for sharing it and wishing you all of the best. 

Ararat,

"They're here!"

I love spooky kid photos. They give me the willies. She is a pretty little thing. I like the pale skin tone. It goes along with her otherworldliness. 

You might want to consider using a vertical format. She is a vertical subject. Either way you want to compositionally balance the left and right sides of the photograph. The compositional "rule" for this suggests that you position the tip of the subject's nose in the vertical center of the photograph.

Your main light is coming from below her eyes. Notice the catch lights are below the center of her pupils. The name for this style of lighting is grotesque lighting. It has been (and still is) used in video and still photography to light vampires, werewolves, bad witches. Her expression works perfectly with this style of lighting. 

This portrait reminds me the little girl (only with curly hair) in the movie Poltergeist. I think it was Heather O'Rourke who was part of the "Poltergeist curse" and died under rather mysterious circumstances soon after the last movie was made.

Nice shot,

Mark

Simply beatifull. Waht I like very much is the softness of the light, exellent. Ciao.

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It is rather striking, and the light tones and soft light help draw attention to the dark pupils of the eyes. Her face has a subtly luminous quality. At the same time, I'm not sure it's really a flattering portrait. Lighting from below tends to make people look creepy, and her lack of expression and the somewhat cold quality of the light add to that. I think the picture is well done in the sense that the photographer probably got exactly what he intended, but I have my doubts about the artistic judgment that defined that intention. If I had a picture of one of my daughters that produced the effect this picture does, I probably wouldn't want to look at it very often.

I'll have to just echo Craig, and add that the entire thing would completely change (for me, anyway) if that light source was camera-level, camera left. And maybe a few degrees warmer. All depends on the context in which the image is to be used/seen, of course.

I like this photo. It is indeed different in that this lighting is not what most people desire to use, yet, it is striking to see children photographed in such a manner in which there is such a seriousness.. as opposed to playful/carefree tone .. the eyes engage a viewer and the expression poses a question or makes a statement .. I can think of many commercial applications for such an image .. But I think I like it simply because most of us seldom view children with such seriousness and on the "same level" as this portrait implies .. we tend to look at children from a higher angle which makes them smaller, diminutive, and helpless ... seldom engaging them intellectually as this angle and lighting demand. I think it works as an image very well due to the youth/age of the subject and the smooth skin tones; with older children or young adults I think a similar photo would take on a more sinister implication and lose the appeal which innocence implies.

I think the same as Michael above, except for the last part of the comment. The contrast between light effect and young age of the subject gives a strong sinister aspect to this scene. And I think subject is perfect here because of her big bright eyes and lips. Even the combing isn't standard for her age. I love this shot!

Hello.
A nice portrait with well shaped in the frame.The picture is very impressive and impress me too much according to the looking of this cute angel.I think she wanted to say a request but she could n`t.She said all things with her nice looking.A little shy and cute!The light control and light managing are very good and the soft tones made the shot,strong.BG is very consonant with the image.A little cool but all things are in a good shape and balance.
Regards(Bobby).

I like the light fall off from left to right. Nice subtle shadows as well. The eyes & expression really make this stand out from the usual child's portrait

It looks to me like the picture has some serious problems with exposure, temperature, tone. The blast of light coming from lower left is not properly exposed. Somewhat of a curious portrait, as poorly developed images often are. You could argue in favor of it from some aesthetic point of view, but to me, as soon as I look at it, I see the technical flaws. It's almost like having to look at something through a dirty glass. There is a haze that is not flattering at all.

I have to admit that I really like this image a lot. Certainly, I can understand some of the earlier comments, but I find more ambiguity here than specifics and find that to be a riveting affect of the image.

This appears to be a situation where the little girl was standing in the swale of a window streaming harsh daylight which creates the soft overall light. Then the harsh light hitting the floor in front of her bounces up and gives a secondary glow from below creating the directional feel from the left and below. I think it would have been easy to push the image to a bit more contrast and make the "mood" a bit more definite, but I think some wonderful restraint was shown here (especially when we consider the others in this photostream). In fact, there seems to have been a fine balance of "grayness" left here that sort of hints at desaturation while at the same time it feels natural. This all plays perfectly to set the stage for this marvelous little girl.

The thing I find most interesting, supported by the light and post, is this "in-between" expression and stare by this little girl. Creepy? Maybe, but I think that is because she shows us nothing and everything. At one glance, I see her inch towards a smile, the next sadness and the next inquisition. She seems to know everything about us while she gives us little in return, except a wonderful riveting look.

She isn't someone I know and had the lighting, expression etc been more "normal", I probably wouldn't have cared less. Here, she makes me wonder, not about her, but about myself--and that makes me care.

I see the look or style here as very intentional, not an accident of lighting or an inattentiveness to the filter a haze can bring. For me, there is a death-like pallor both to the girl and to the photo as a whole. Yet, I am not disconcerted by it. I get a sense of limbo looking at this, an expression not quite complete, a thought not quite articulated. Perhaps more purgatory than hell. There's an ambiguous quality that could otherwise be appealing except I don't feel the ambiguity committed to as much as left hanging in that haze. The eyes detract for me. They seem an anomaly relative to the rest of the picture.

I, for one, like the lighting.

This photograph obviously wasn't meant to be one of those generic cutesey-touchy-feely little kid portraits that are churned out by the millions every year by "portrait photographers".

The lighting establishes a mood and gives it a bit of depth for me. That and her eyes take this out of the realm of ordinary portraiture...and it may be a minor point, but it's nice to see catchlights in a different spot in the eyes. I also like the wispy look of her hair.

The top and bottom cropping/framing keeps the viewer's attention on the important details.

To put a finer point on it, if this were lighted "conventionally", and if it wasn't for her eyes, this would be nothing more than a snapshot.

I think it's very well done.

The portrait is original and pretty convincing, although for me there is an excess of light to the left that takes detail of the skin. But... nothing too serious.
I wonder, honestly, if the child has eyes and a mouth that size, if that was not retouched with Liquify tool.
Finally, I must say that while admiring the picture, I recognize myself as so many who cherish the beauty of white skin and light eyes, that cliché that is present in publicity, which often ignore the beauty that may be out of these stereotyped patterns.

The comments about exposure are baffling. The exposure is not challenged at all. As far as the image, it's a neat, different take on a typical subject. It manages to be different and interesting and attractive, which isn't easy. It's tempting to say that it's a tad contrived and cliched, but it's hard to say that without knowing more about the process. We don't know anything about how it was made. Is the light and tone almost all Photoshop? It wouldn't be hard to do this starting with a normal color shot in window light. The composition is too tight for me, quite claustrophobic. That would be my only negative.