Untitled

Critiques and ratings welcome.

Sincerely, Jukka

Nice Shot, how did you arrange the lights?  3 lights or 4

main light on the left, fill light above the camera, hairlight above and little back from subject and backround light.
Sincerely, Jukka

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/199/jukkatuohino2.jpg

Jukka,

Sandy is a very pretty girl. You have focused well on her eyes. I like the lighting. The shadows make it interesting and they do add a little depth to the photograph. She has very good eye contact with the camera (viewer). The painted background in nicely neutral. I like the specular highlights on her lips.

It appears you have burned-in the bottom quite a bit or there is an extreme drop off of light intensity from her face to the bottom of the frame. You want her arm to be darker than her face and a subtle burning in is a very good way to do this. You don't want it to be so much darker as to be noticeable by the viewer. The key is subtlety.

I would lighten her skin tones a little. If you lightened the shadows, she would be better separated from the background. The hair light does help separate the top of her head from the background, but the bottom sections of her hair blend in. The same is true of the front of her shirt. The way the light skims the back of her shirt really makes the wrinkles stand out. With this style of lighting, her shirt needs to be ironed and wrinkle free.

Her expression is pleasant, but her lips look a little pursed. She could use a more relaxed smile.

It is a good idea to pose her at an angle to the camera. Posing her at 90˚ to the camera can make her head seem unsupported. It doesn't help that her posture isn't very good, either. Her shoulders are slumped forward and it looks like her head is pushed forward a bit. I would suggest posing her at about 45˚ to the camera and having her sit up straight with her shoulders back and her chest forward.

The composition is very left heavy. Sandy 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.

You could crop a smidgen off the bottom to give it a little better top and bottom compositional balance, but what you have is really quite acceptable. 

It would be better if you would have had Sandy brush the hair out of her eyes. She has hair falling in front of her pupils. It looks a bit messy on her shoulders, too. It just needs to be straightened up a tad.

One catch light per eye is preferred. The ideal location for the catch lights would be at about the 10 or 2 o'clock position on her irises.

She has a nice "girl next door" make-up look -- quite minimal. I think she would use a little more mascara. A little eyeliner under her eyes would frame them and help to make them stand out even better.

It would be a good idea to retouch any imperfections on her skin.

Her pupils are quite dilated. If you use brighter modeling lights or have a brighter area to shoot her in, her eyes will not become so dilated.

Nice shot,

Mark

You are never going to appreciate Mark's critiques until you have looked at his portfolio of images.  Please do look at them.

jm

read Mark's feedback very carefully and studied what he has said.

I am very grateful to him and all the rest who will give feedback to my photos.

I will also give feedback when I have more time.

Sincerely, Jukka