toribw00003

This is a very sweet portrait - you really captured a wonderful smile that doesn't feel forced - I love the warm tone of the image as well - thanks for sharing it with us-

Mark

thank you very much for your comment

Dave,

She is a pretty girl with a lovely smile. You have focused well on her eyes. Her skin tone is very good. I like the lighting. The compositional balance is quite good.

The background is nicely out of focus and she is quite well separated from it except for her sweater. Her sweater does blend into the dark background a bit. The background is nicely neutral except for the light leaves on the right (her left). Those could be burned-in a bit.

There are reflections in in her eyes, but they are quite dim. More pronounced catchlights would add more life to her eyes.

You could lighten the dark circles under her eyes.

If you lightened the shadows a bit you could get a little more detail in her sweater and maybe a little more separation of her sweater from the background.

You have burned-in the edges of your photograph. Darkening the edges helps to keep the viewer's eyes within the photograph which is a very good thing to do. You do not want to make it obvious that you have darkened the edges of a portrait. You want to have a very subtle gradation of tone going to the edges. The process shouldn't draw attention to itself.

Besides burning-in the edges it looks like you have made the edges rather hazy or more out-of-focus. It doesn't affect the dark areas, but it really looks odd where her white blouse and especially her hair are out-of-focus. I cropped into her hair a bit to try to get rid of some of it. I didn't want to crop above her blouse so we are stuck with that out-of-focus part of your subject. It is really annoying. 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. You have to be very careful what areas of a portrait you allow to go out-of-focus.

Nice shot,

Mark

i have addressed and agreed with what you said i have uploaded a fix and would love your thoughts

I like this...it seems to capture the essence of her personality...I like the B&W PP...excellent tones and textures.  I think the soft natural light works, but this image may have benefited froma  bit of bounce fill...to bring out the gleam in her eyes...overall though a nice portrait.