Face the Storm

Comments are very welcomed !

Thanks in advance

Very nice shot! I've got nothing bad to say about it, I love it! Very good work!

Nice pic

GREATWORK BUT................

REALLY SCREAM HEAVY HANDED PHOTOSHOP

SOFTEN THAT CUT AND PASTE EFFECT THAT THE STARK TRANSITION OF THE HOOD TO THE REST OF THE SCENE IMPARTS AND YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY

 

 

Matthew, thank you for taking the time to comment!

I'm sorry to disapoint you, but this is a TOTAL ORIGINAL PICTURE AND THERE IS NO CUT AND PASTE HERE. I would have notified it otherwise ;) This is just a simple "windy" picture!

Quite frankly one of (if not the) best shots I have seen on this site...stunning, very well done...

Thank you very much Paul! I admire your nature and landscapes folder and this is a very nice compliment you made to me.

Love it!

Hi

I look at hundreds of photo.net pictures almost every day and only ever comment on one if it pulls my face into my computer screen. I havent made a comment in months. Today, i was astonished. This image is a masterpiece, a work of art in every literal sence. Well done, bravo and please encore.

Marta, the model, is from Madrid and she hadn't seen the Ocean for months. The elements were getting wild, the sea and the wind were so powerfull that with the sea spray, it was hard to take the picture. I'm glad most of you like it. Thank you for all the kind words!

this is very original, particularly the hairs blown away by the wind that look somewhat like eyelids of an opened eye on a stange world. I wonder how it would have looked to have taken the shot a bit more from your right (her back), hidding her nose (probably not better but just different).

Original shot.

Proves that you don't need perfect conditions and a nice sun to make a great outdoor shot.

 

While this is a terrific shot, I wish you would have gotten the horizon line straight. Everything else is great!

I love this shot. I think with the right retouch it could be really amazing - one for the portfolio!

Yes. An alignment of the horizon would certainly make the image better. However, a bit of the hand would be lost as a result of the counter-clockwise rotation, and the person would be looking down a little more. Otherwise, I love the originality, and the composition.

very good shot.I love it.

I really like how the person is up in your face, while you can also see what's going on over the water. Reminds me of a memorex commerical in some weird way.

 

Nice job.

I really love the angle of the horizon in this shot. It is lined up directly with the eyes and as the line leaves the eye it does so on a slight upward projectory. This gives me the feeling that whilst in the midst of a storm one can look above and beyond, on an upward projectory, to something coming that only the optimistic can see. I ove it. It is different and it makes a statement. To me that is what this shot is all about. Standing strong in the face of a storm and being able to see what is yet to come.

The horizon definitely needs to be leveled out. Maybe you can't do it now due to the angle of the head or the position of the hand, but that should have been taken into consideration while exposing the frame. As it looks now, it appears as if the ocean is pouring into her eye, which leads me to my next point. I do really like the way that the horizon line and the beach line both emanate from her eye. I wouldn't like it so much if her eye were exposed, but now it leads you to where her eye should be, making up for the fact that you can't see her eye. Overall, this is ok, but it definitely has a lot of potential to be much better in my opinion.

This is an original shot, no doubt about it. It is very refreshing to see this kind of photograph being appreciated on PN where more and more boring and unoriginal "beautiful" shots seem to be standard now. I like the motive very much.

 

To become a "work of art" as some consider this picture to be here, the composition needs to be worked over imo. The horizon does not look deliberately tilted, it just looks accidentally tilted. The percentage of space the hood takes in comparison to beach and sky is slightly too much in my opinion. Especially the creases in the lower right corner should go (or be dodged). As she is looking at the sea (with the horizon so effectively positioned in the height of her eyes) I would like to have more of water at the left.

 

Another possibility might be to position the point where the horizon meets her face the center of a square crop. But that would become a very different picture with a message most likely not intended by the photographer :-)

I agree with Birgit about the space taken by the hood. As is, the picture is almost divided in two equal parts. It's as if the proportions of each of the two parts (hood/landscape) ended up being like this just by chance, and I think in the process the picture loses some of the expressive power it could have.

 

Of course this doesn't mean that all pictures that look half/half give the impression that the division was arbitrary, but in this particular case I don't see a justification for this composition (could be just me...).

 

Don't misunderstand me though, I think this is a very nice shot, way above the average of what goes these days in photo.net. It's also the shot I prefer from what you uploaded so far to photo.net.

 

A plus... :-)

I agree with Ilan & Birgit about the horizon being tilted, but getting past that, my only complaint is in the hood taking up too much space [also mentioned already]. I like the proposed idea of turning the cam to the right more as François suggests, but I wouldn't want to lose the nose! My proposal would have been to step back a few feet in order to gain more hand and a sliver of bgrd behind the hood, and therefore put the whole subject more in context with the environment. Perhaps then though, we would miss that brilliant dof effect of the subject standing out so sharply in contrast to the softer brd. Jeez, you just can't have it all!

I really like the exposure, which is not high contrast, subtly coloured, in diffuse light, but with the white of the surf really white, but without sacrificing detail in the light shade of the hood. Detail of the hair is magnificent, and it is this which carries the weight of appeal for me, particularly since it makes the effect of the invisible wind the most notable element of the picture [via the hair], and yet you relate the impression of motion with sharp focus rather than blur.

Very invigorating shot indeed!

ps Matthew said: REALLY SCREAM HEAVY HANDED PHOTOSHOP SOFTEN THAT CUT AND PASTE EFFECT THAT THE STARK TRANSITION OF THE HOOD TO THE REST OF THE SCENE IMPARTS AND YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY.

Are you kidding yourself with that over-confident statement? You only have to see the stray individual strands of hair [against the out of focus sand] to realise it is not cut & paste!

I like the feeling of this picture. I like hair especially, but also the hand and the little bit of nose and mouth. I think it could get by a little better with less hood, and with more texture on what hood is left. Horizon tilt is a no-no, I agree. I also like the lines on the sand that converge along with the horizon and shoreline at the eye, as was pointed out above.

Ah yes I see Jason, perhaps Matthew was advising to use PS to soften the transition. Thanks for pointing that out.

I really like the square crop!

Thank you all for analyzing this photo. All your comments helps me to improve but most important, they make me see different things on the picture each time i look at it.

Once again, there were no big calculations or preparation for this shot. The angle converging to the eye, the stormy light and the wind in her hair represented enough interest to take this shot.

Of course it could be improved in many different ways, and i tend to agree on most of your comments.

Tahnks for the square picture, I also like it a lot.

Have a nice day if you read this!