PORTRE 4

She is a very interesting lady; I wonder what she is thinking about.  Perhaps she is wondering why the photographer decided to cut off the top of her head.  She will miss it.  She probably wonders why a portrait (vertical) crop was not used instead of the horizontal {landscape) crop.  She wonders why half the picture is a blurry wall with some kind of impossible to see picture on it.  She probably wonders if the picture on the wall is of a person and whether that person lost his head top also.

Now that I think of, I wonder too.

Jerry

HAKAN,

She is a pretty girl. Her skin tone is very good. The light is very good, but I would have liked to see a more pronounced catchlight in her left eye. Her eyes are in good focus. I like the specular highlights on her lips.

The background is nicely out of focus and she is somewhat separated from the background. A lighter background or a hair or backlight would have better separated her from the background.

Her expression is pleasant, but her eyebrows seem a little furrowed. I don't know if she is concentrating on something, is upset or is just worried.

Her make-up looks good, but there is a problem with the lower eyelashes on her right eye. I don't know if you had retouching problems or if she had trouble applying her mascara. There are some imperfections on her skin that should be corrected. You should soften and lighten the circles under her eyes. They make her look a little tired.

You have cropped quite far into her head. This calls for a much tighter crop 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 1/3 to 3/8 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. I actually think more headroom would look better than cropping more off the bottom.

She is a vertical subject shot in a horizontal format. Unless there is something next to her that tells something about your subject or has importance to why she is in this particular location, it would be best to shoot her vertically. 

The picture on the wall to her right does somewhat balance her off center position, but it doesn't appear to be of importance to the portrait. She would look better centered more. 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.

She is looking slightly to the right (her left) of the camera. If not making eye contact with the camera (viewer), the eyes should follow the line of the nose. It is natural to look where your head is pointing. If looking off to the side you should show what she is looking at or provide a reason that she is not looking where her head is pointing. 

It appears your camera is placed below her eye level. You are looking up at her. It would be better to position your camera at about her eye level.

You have a merger with the bottom of the frame and her scoop neckline. It would be better to crop farther below where her neckline comes together. 

Nice shot,

Mark

Mark thanks a lot for your details study of this portait.... Most of it I agree with you fully...

Thanks again...