looking ahead

Great face, expression and lighting, pose also!

PDE

Carlo,

She is a beautiful girl with excellent skin tone. She has a very nice expression. Her make-up is very well done -- very natural looking. The background is nicely out of focus and she is well separated from it. The short lighting works well for her.

I am going to give you a few things to think about for your next shoot of this lovely girl ...

It would be a good idea to remove the sliver of green clothing on the bottom and her out of focus arm or hand in the lower right corner of the photograph.

Have her brush he hair back. You don't want to have to mess with removing any hair falling across her face -- especially her eyes.

Be careful of split profiles. You do not want the tip of her nose to come close to touching the far cheek line. You want to make sure the far eye is either completely showing or not showing at all. You do not want to have the bridge of her nose cut into her far eye.

You should add more room onto the right side or crop some off the left 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.

With a crop this tight on the bottom, I would crop a little off the top. 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.

She is looking to the left of where her head is pointing. 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 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. If you have her looking out of the corners of her eyes it looks awkward and unnatural. You don't want it to appear that she is straining her eye muscles.

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 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.  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 in focus. This includes her far eye, the back of her head and her clothing.

Your name (Carlo Mogavero) and the advertising (Photograpy © www.carlomogavero.weebly.com) is not part of the photograph. It would be appropriate to place your name and the date on a mat surrounding the photograph. Any advertising would be better placed on the back of the photograph. You want nothing in your photograph that will draw the viewer's attention away from your subject.

I have cropped to try to give you a little better compositional balance.

Nice shot,

Mark

A very beautiful expressive portrait. Congrats !