face to face... goodbye!

:)

A great shot Bob, a very enchanting expression on a very beautiful woman.

 

To my tastes, the image is a little weak in contrast, without any real blacks. I played with levels a bit and upped the mid and low tones contrast. What do you think?

and Happy New Year, or at least Joy, Peace, and a Happy Holiday Season.

Great portrait, Bob!

Wishing you Happy Holidays!

An expressive portrait and charming face Bob ..

 

a very Happy New Year to you. John

Great portrait ...lovely.

Enchanting expression, good shoot Bob!

Vintage!

 

Look and feel are very nice.

 

(I do wonder if losing a sliver from the right mght improve the composition. But I'm not sure.)

Charming subject well portrayed. The black scarf is a nice touch. A good example of black and white portraiture to my mind. For her kind of face the slight up angle worked out well. I like it. gs

Bob,

 

She is a very pretty girl. She looks like a little pixie. That is quite the impish smile. It wouldn't surprise me if you had to use Photoshop to remove her pointy ears. You have focused well on her eyes. The skin tone is quite good. I like the soft lighting. It goes well with her facial features. The background is nicely out of focus to help keep our attention on your subject.

 

I would not shoot your subject strait on to the camera. If you turn her at an angle to the camera her body will appear thinner, more feminine and more graceful. It does look a little strange to have her right shoulder up and her left shoulder down and out of sight? This may very well be corrected if you angle her to the camera.

 

I am not real sure why you have not used a vertical format with a vertical subject. I guess you liked to have a lot of that nice background behind her? Either way I would have had a little less head room. That would give you better top and bottom compositional balance. Right now you are a little bottom heavy (the photograph, that is).

 

Matthijs is quite right. You should crop some off the right side or have her move a bit to her left. 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.

 

I think a bit more make-up around her eyes would make them stand out a bit better. They really could use more light. Notice that the whites of her eyes are not white. They look a bit grey. She really could use catch lights to give her eyes more life. Be careful of the reflections in her eyes. Notice the lower part of her iris on her right eye and the right side of the whites of her left eye. There are annoyingly bright reflections in these areas. These reflections should be removed.

 

It appears you are shooting up to her a bit. I think it would look better to raise your camera up just a tad. You want her to be at eye level.

 

My eyes do keep going to her scarf because it is the darkest part of the photograph. You do have detail in it, so I'm not so sure you really need to lighten it any. You certainly wouldn't want it any darker. It would really block up and lose detail. It might just be me. I am not at all sure there is really anything wrong with it. All and all, this paragraph didn't add anything at all to the critique, but I put enough thought into it that I don't want to erase it. So you may just want to pretend it's not here. I just carry on.

 

Her right shoulder is a bit lighter than her face. This draws the viewer's attention to her shoulder and away from her face. A rather bright area at the edge of the frame will not only draw the viewer's eyes, but may lead the viewer right out the the photograph. Of course, your dark mat does help prevent this quite nicely.

 

Nice shot,

 

Mark

Nice Shot Bob! I would stick with your image and not the higher contrast as suggested. I love the DOF and Bokeh.

 

Happy 2010!

Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts.

Striking portrait; it looks almost Asian or Middle Eastern in composition and tone.

Beautiful photography you have here<3