blonde beauty

Hi John,

For me, this is a corker!  Your models expression is nice, and the hair movement is very pleasing.  Skin tones a beautiful and no hot areas that I can see.  My only suggestion would be for a 3/4 face to add a little more three dimensional form and possibly her body could be angled slightly more towards the viewer for the same reason.  I am no expert in portraiture, although being my passion!  Indeed, my latest creation scored terribly to my disappointment!

John,

She is indeed a blonde beauty. You have focused very well on her eyes. I love the movement of her hair and her expression. The color saturation and contrast are very good. The background is nicely out of focus and the color works well. She is well separated from the background. Because she is quite the cutie I am going to get little picky in my critique.

I like her make-up, but she could use a little more light in her eyes so we can see them better. A catchlight would give more life to her right eye.

Her skin tone is a tad on the yellow/green side. Notice the greenish tint to her hair.

You have cropped into her hair. To have good top and bottom compositional balance you would have to crop quite a bit off the bottom. As it is, the image looks a bit top heavy. It would be better to just give her some headroom.

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.

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.

She is looking a bit right 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. 

Nice shot,

Mark

Thanks James for your comments.She was taken during movement which explains how her hair was flying so positioning her head was accidental.

Thanks Mark for your detailed critique.You have a very keen eye for colour.I did another rework with 10% less green which was a better result. Thanks again.   John