Bree

Jason,

Even though her expression looks a little scornful to me (eyebrows low and eyes slightly squinty), Bree is a pretty girl. If you cover her eyes, her mouth looks very pleasant -- not at all nasty. Her look comes across as "hard" looking. Her eye make-up looks very good. I would like to see a darker lipstick (or gloss) to emphasize her lips more. They seem to be receding into her face. A darker shade may make her upper lip more dominant, too. It looks a little thin.

She has very good eye contact with the camera (viewer). The lighting, including catchlights looks good. I personally like a little longer shadow from the nose -- even to the point of connecting with the shadow on her cheek at the corner of her mouth. It does look very good, though. The shadows add interest and help to create a nice feeling of depth within your photograph.

The background in nicely neutral and she is quite well separated from it. There are some darker shadowy looking vertical "lines" in the upper corners. I am not sure what is causing this, but they are only marginally annoying.

The tilt of her head is very nice. I do wish her right earring was a little more angled to the camera. The large half-circle draws my attention.

Now for the composition. You have cropped into her hair which implies a tight crop on the bottom, but not this tight. For the little bit you have cropped into her hair you should have quite a bit more on the bottom. If you are going to do a fairly close shot of the face, it is a good idea to place the eyes about one third of the way down from the top. If nothing else, this gives you a good starting point from which to adjust your top and bottom compositional balance. With her eyes about in the middle of the photograph her face seems to be dragged down towards the bottom of the picture. It makes the top of her head appear larger than it is (out of proportion). In other words, the top and bottom compositional balance is bottom heavy. You need to add more on the bottom, crop more off the top or some combination of the two.

Your image is a little left heavy. Her hair and her earring look very nice on the right (her left) side of the picture. If you can add on to the left (her right) side of the picture that would be very good. If you cannot add on to that side you need to crop into the right side. Your subject should have more room in front of her than behind. This allows her to be facing into the picture, not out of it. 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. By positioning the tip of her nose in the vertical center of the photograph you not only have her facing into the picture, but you have good left and right compositional balance. This little rule almost always works well. At least it gives you a good starting point from which to subtly adjust your composition to make it visually balanced.

Even though she is looking back at the camera (viewer) and it appears very natural and not at all strained, it would look better if her head was turned a tad more towards the camera. It is best to have at least some of the whites of her eyes showing on each side of her irises. This helps to make her eyes look balanced.

Her hair looks very fine and fluffy. She may need a little conditioner to give it more body. I find having her hair fall in front of her eyes a bit annoying. It doesn't help make her look coquettish or demure at all. Hair slightly hiding the eyes can sometimes make a girl appear shy and or innocently sensual or sexual looking. She certainly doesn't have that windblown look. I think you should just brush the hair out of her eyes.

This image has an overall muddy look to it. There is not much in the way of zip. Your contrast is low. The whites are not vibrant or as radiant looking as they should be (notice her eyes) and the blacks are more charcoal gray than rich bold blacks. She has good catchlights and the eyeliner under her eyes frames them well, but her eyes are not coming alive and popping out at me. A muddy image usually will have the girl look like she is receding into the photograph.

You have focused well on her eyes, but your depth of field is so narrow that her hair is out of focus. Even her right (image left) earring is not sharp. I hope you didn't try to soften the edges instead of subtly burning them in. I don't see a good reason to have any of her out of focus. An out of focus background is very nice and focuses attention on your subject. Parts of your subject out of focus will draw attention away from what is in focus. It is difficult to go wrong with having the entire subject, including clothes and accessories,  in focus.

Without reshooting or adding areas that are not present in your photograph, I have given you a more balanced crop to the image. I have tried to make her stand out a little more by adjusting some of the controls for exposure, contrast, highlights, etc. I hope my rendition and my critique will give you some ideas or at least something to think about.

Nice shot,

Mark

Jason,

The more I look at my rendition, the more I think it might need even more contrast. This might be a little better?

I have also noticed that her right eye is not in focus. You have focused on the eye nearest the camera, which is what you are supposed to do. Your depth of field is so narrow that her far eye is clearly (well, it is to me now) out of focus. It is not supposed to matter if the far eye is somewhat out of focus if the near eye is in focus. The reasoning is that psychologically the viewer will consider the picture to be in focus if the eye nearest him or her is in focus. I'm not sure this is true. As I mentioned before I think it looks best if all of your subject is in focus.

Mark

Thank you so much for the critique, Mark! That was extremely helpful :)

Jason