Maleeka!

Shot in the Cape Town City centre, one Saturday afternoon, January

2011. Maleeka wore this ball gown to her 'end of school" party, at the

end of 2009. What do you think? Comments and crit welcome!

...... looks like a lovely model however, for me, the pose does her no favours. An "upside down" model makes me want to PS it to see what she really looks like.

This image emphasises her cleavage more than her face and I'm not sure that the whites of her eyes really work for me?

In your pre-amble you mention her "school leavers" ball gown yet present little of it.

Hopefully you will post more of this model as I think she could be a stunner.

Regards

Hannes,

Upside down or not -- Maleeka is indeed a very pretty girl. You have focused well on her eyes. Her skin tone is good and she has good eye contact with the camera (viewer). The contrast is very good. She is separated well from the background which is nicely out of focus. The backlighting does help with that separation.

I am not usually a big fan of using the rule of thirds to position a subject in portraiture, but this works quite well. Maleeka's off-center position is somewhat balanced by the left side of the photograph. 

While the background is nicely out of focus, there is a light circular area in the left center that draws attention away from your subject. The other circular area, farther to the right, is not as light, and therefore, not as troublesome. There are very nice leading lines, but they do not lead to your subject. They lead to the dark doorway in the center of the photograph. The viewer's eyes are actually led away from the subject.

As Grayham mentioned, your eyes do go to Maleeka's cleavage (and a very nice cleavage it is -- he said waving his cigar), but I do think it is secondary after her face. Her face has a larger light area to attract attention.

The lighting works very well and you have filled the shadows in nicely, but you have those tiny pointy little catchlights in the center of her pupils. I can only assume you used your camera's built-in flash for your fill. Maleeka's eyes look spooky enough with so much white under (in this case over, because she is upside down) her irises. Catchlights in the very center of her eyes makes them look even spookier. 

Notice the rectangular shape you have created -- left elbow up to left shoulder, across to right shoulder and down to right elbow and back to her left elbow. That is a masculine shape. It is angular and hard. It is not soft and curved. It does nothing to help make Maleeka look feminine, graceful or elegant.

The advertisement of your website (hannes@zatech.com) is a distraction. It draws attention away from your subject. You want nothing within the photograph to draw the viewer's attention away from your subject. It would be appropriate to place your name and the date the image was made, if you so wish, on a mat surrounding the photograph. All advertising and any other extraneous information would be better placed on the back of your photograph.

I played around with the composition a bit and lightened the shadows a smidgen. I also tried to remove the of the areas surrounding Maleeka that I thought were a problem. 

Nice shot,

Mark

OK, always possible to make it better, but I like this picture. Strange atmosphere, but very nice and original composition, so different from usual portraits.

a very different and interesting portrait - I like the original exposure - the one submitted is more towards being washed out to me - in a world where 99% of portraits have the "same" sort of look, I applaud you for moving towards something else . I like it.

Very creative and really well composed shot.

Thank you Grayham. Some valid points. Will most certainly post more of Maleeka. And yes, she is a stunner. This was her first modelling session, and she followed my directions so well.

Mark, I REALLY appreciate the time you took, and your very detailed analysis. I am very impressed!! Some very valid points, and yes, I actually had to go and check the Exif file, and I used an external 550EX flash to fill. The light bounced off Maleeka's upper body was created by sunlight bouncing off a skyscraper from the top left corner of the frame. The lights in the background in traffic lights!(We tend to call them ROBOTS in South Africa!!!LOL) Thank you for the other points. We shall keep them very much in mind for our further work. Thank you , again.

Thank you so much, J-L Frerotte, Sam and Bill!!

Maleeka's first reaction when she read the comments, was

"LOL Photographers are very critical hey!! I appreciate all the comments, now we know what to work on next time"!!

Brilliant, Maleeka, that is the point!! I am so impressed with your quick grasp. We are going to produce some brilliant work!!

 Thank you , again.

Very beautiful image and pose. Compliments!!

Thank you Borg!!