6610

Denis,

6610 is a pretty girl. You have focused well on her eyes. She has very good skin tone. The color saturation is very good. Her eye contact with the camera (viewer) is very good. I like her cute smile. The background is nicely out of focus.

Her dark hair does sort of blend into the background. It would be good to have a back or hair light. If you don't have one to use, you could just place her in front of a lighter background.

Although the background is out of focus it has some very bright yellow areas which draw attention away from the subject's face. You have a horizontal line going one side of her head and out the other. That doesn't look very good.

She has a very nice manicure, but needs some work on her make-up. Some mascara on her lower eyelashes and a little eyeliner under her eyes would help make her eyes more dominant.

To better compositionally balance the top and bottom of your photograph, I would crop some off the bottom.

Watch your depth of field. Her elbow is out of focus. 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.

Be careful of foreshortening. Watch for anything closer to the camera than the body. If nearer the camera than her body her feet, knees, hands, elbows and shoulders will look out of proportion to the rest of the body -- larger than normal -- foreshortened.

I find the large chair slats to be distracting. Most anything large in front of your subject will distract the viewer.

Avoid bright colors and bold patterns in clothing. In a portrait the subject’s face is what is most important and nothing should draw the viewer’s attention away from the face.

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.

You have used your camera's flash as your main light. This will give you those tiny pointy looking catch lights in the middle of her eyes. The ideal position for catch lights is close to the 10 or 2 o'clock position on her irises. To achieve this your main light should be above, in front and to the side of your subject. The camera flash will also give you very flat lighting. Judicious use of shadows can make your photograph much more interesting and create a very nice illusion of depth within your photograph.

I'm really not sure I like your "mat". It's kind of "modern" looking, but I think a plain mat would have worked just as well -- maybe better. I'll have to think about it for a while?

Nice shot,

Mark