Be My Audrey

very beautyfull work !!

i'like; the b&w sofness, light & shadows and gain. 

Really like the look and feel of this great shot 

This is an outstanding portrait work in b/w format for this pretty and competent model, the lighting here is superb and so well balanced with great and fine details out of the face and ehnhanced with softnning, the contrast and tone are of very high quality while the model is so well connecting with the viewers.

Thank you for sharing this work and wishing you all of the best.

Marcin,

Audrey is a beautiful girl. Your butterfly (Hollywood/Paramount) lighting works nicely. I love the highlights on her lower lip. She also has very nice highlights in her hair. Her skin tone and the contrast are excellent. The background is nicely neutral and Audrey is well separated from it.

Her eyes seem very sharp, but her eyelashes don't seem quite as sharp? The depth of focus is so narrow that parts of Audrey are out of focus. An out of focus background draws the viewer's attention to the subject. Parts of your subject out of focus can draw attention away from what is in focus. Generally, I don't see a good reason to have any part of the subject out of focus.

Although I do like Audrey posed from the side, you usually do not want to have your subject turned 90 degrees to the camera. This can make the head look unsupported. Generally, it looks best to angle your subject somewhere around 45 degrees.

Her right shoulder looks a little pushed in -- a tad slouchy. This makes her shoulder look a bit overly large. She is also covering some of her neck with that shoulder. This has the effect of making her pretty neck appear shorter. You would want to show off her elegant long neck. I would like to see her with better posture.

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 also have good left and right compositional balance. The tip of her nose doesn't have to be exactly centered, but this gives you a good starting point from which to subtly adjust your composition to make it visually balanced. This little rule almost always works well.

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. 

With butterfly lighting you have to be careful of shadows falling over the top of her eyes. Sometimes you have to adjust (lower) your main light. It would be good to have one catchlight in each eye -- preferably on the iris. This would make sense with butterfly lighting. She has a reflection of a light running across the bottom of each eyeball. Those should be removed.

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

Thankyou for the time and good word :)

Marc - what you write is interesting but I find it a tad bit too generic. I almost see it ctrl-c&ctrl-v'd from your other critiques ;) Surely, not everything on every portrait should be done by the book.

I'll try and explain myself a bit - the weakest point of this photo is the arm, but her face is so cute it almost makes up for it. That's why I decided to put in online anyway. The composition point you've given me (center the nose) wouldn't work here - the composition would become loose, with no tension at all. I made her look left while facing right exactly to build tension in the portrait - add some character if you will.

The narrow depth of focus is used to bring attention to the eyes, which are the main points of the image. I admit to being a huge fan of shallow DOF btw. Softness of the photo is caused by the wide open lens - I found this softness works very well for portraits. Shadow across the eye is intentional ofcourse - this is one of the most beautifull effects of the butterfly lighting, this shadow. I'm also not happy about no catchlight in the other eye, but it was not possible to achieve with this lighting scheme without changing the shadow placement. So I had to choose - and I chose shadows over catchlight. I could've removed the reflection of the reflector on the eye, but i decided not to. It's an unmanipulated photo (except for crop from square) and I'd wanted to keep it that way.

I agree about the pose - it's not the best... but as I said before - her face makes up for it :)

Thanks for your time.

Oh, one more thing - her name is not Audrey - It's just that she reminds me of one famous hollywood actress. Hence the title :)

There is a certain resemblance at first glance!

Best regards Marcin!

PDE

In a few words, I really like this portrait.  I like the composition and I like Audrey's expression.  She reminds me of another Audrey.  I mean Hepburn.  Was that deliberate?