Image replaced, original below

I thought framing to one side made an interesting composition. Does it

work?

Eye think it works Great ! ........... Eye also think it would look good in b&w too !

Thanks, Ken! Here it is in B/W.

Another question for ya: Does the crease on her left (under)arm detract? It was pointed out to me and now it bugs me!

Don't know why the background came out pink; here it is again.

Michael,

I think Michael likes this better in black and white because of the color of your background. It is a yucky blah color that doesn't do much for her skin tone. Oops, I forgot sickly as an adjective. With a couple of minor adjustments I think the color shot would look very nice. The black and white looks good, though.

You do want more room in front of her than behind so that she can face into the picture rather than out of it, but not quite this much. 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. This little rule almost always works quite well.

Some people are a stickler for profile "rules". They hate it when the far eyelash shows. It doesn't bother me, but I thought I would throw it in before someone else does.

Watch her posture! Have your subject sit up straight with her shoulders back and her chest out. Do not have her slump her shoulders.

Do not pose your subject straight on to the camera. This is not a very feminine pose. Showing your subject’s widest areas (shoulder to shoulder or hip to hip) makes those areas appear wide. Your subject will appear thinner and more feminine, graceful and elegant if turned at an angle to the camera. The lines you see from an angle have more apparent motion, interest and grace. You usually do not want to have your subject turned 90 degrees to the camera. This can make the head look unsupported. It usually looks best to angle your subject somewhere around 45 degrees.

Notice the neckline of her top. The viewer's eyes will go to the “V” formed by the sides of the neckline and follow it down and out of the photograph because there is nothing there to stop them. You should try to crop below where the “V” of the neckline comes together so that the viewer's eyes have a place to stop.

You were concerned with composition, so I will stop here.

Nice shot of a beautiful girl (she's a keeper!),

Mark

Thanks for dropping in and leaving a thoughtful comment, Mark.

I concur with your remarks and a little background might be in order on these series of images: They are candids - I interact with her through conversation as I shoot so her posture and expressions are mostly natural, unposed and unscripted; it's my preferred approach. 

In this particular shot, she happened to give a fleeting glance in the middle of a sequence but my flash couldn't keep up, so it came out grossly underexposed which I was able to recover, somewhat, albeit missing the glint of catch light. In spite of this, I still think it's an attractive picture and worthy of salvage but bogged down by several issues: skin tone and detailed tweaks.

It's a work in progress and I have rendered another version that I think is an improvement, posted here:

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00WqOl

The newer version also tweaks her arms a bit using the liquify tool.

Yeahhh and you've got a spot on your sensor - lower left .... (-;

I don't mind nor particularly notice the crease you mention - and I kind of like her eyelash sticking out there ..

Sharp eye, Ken. :-) I replaced the submitted image and will post the original here so we have continuity.

../users/MichaelChang/Images/DSC_6070_1.jpg

I agree with everything Ken said.

The work on her underarm crease seems a little excessive, to me.  When faced with such gut renching decisions as to remove or leave untouched, I sometimes remove, then history brush it back until the anatomy remains unaltered, but it's less objectionable visually.

wow!,  nice forum posting on skin tones, too. I'll have to print it out for reading later.  My general feeling is that there is no perfect tone, but rather a range in which acceptable results may be found.  I think the eye can tolerate a lot of variance within that range.  and if it comes down to "matching" her exact tone, then you've gone beyond the kind of photography that brings joy to people, and entered the medical world. 

Doug, Tom (Mann) made an interesting point in that forum thread, he said (paraphrasing) that only photographers fuss over sometimes essentially irrelevant details when common viewers will mostly just enjoy the picture, warts and all.

And this is what I agonize over. Girls (understandably) want to look pretty and will accept manipulation providing it's within limits and appears natural, at least that's my take, but within those boundaries is a lot of territory.

My primary interest is to create pictures as pleasing to the general viewer as possible without going overboard, and of course learning the technique to accomplish this.

Funny thing is, a photographer friend reminded me of the elemental rule and importance of getting it right in-camera so I won't have to fuss in post - it was good to be reminded.

I agree with Tom 100%. There are millions of people out there on whom all your effort is wasted.  But, for an assortment of reasons, we photographers are out to impress each other, and that's why we fuss over nuance.  But again, it's sometimes a nuance that appeals to the subconscious viewer. So, you maybe happy with it, she may be happy with it, everyone in your town may be happy with it, but there will always be a photographer out there who will snort at it, to some extent, and spot an area of possible improvement.  It's too subjective for you to worry about, though.

Much has already been said so i will simply say that it is a very fine image.

Thanks for dropping in, Tony; it was a casual fun shoot and I'm learning a lot.

Michael,

   I think it is a wonderful portrait of a very pretty young woman.  I really like the tilt of her head & her eyes looking away from you.  Take care, Patsy

Put me down on the side favouring the B&W image.  B&W is my preferred media for people pictures, probably for the reasons Mark put forward regarding colour interference and compatibility problems.  Mark doesn't have any posts to back this up but I think he's probably a student of Monte Zucker who would have agreed with his critique on a number of issues, especially on her body positioning and (Sorry Ken) the far eyelash.  Too bad about the wimpy flash unit, a tad (-2 stops compensation) of fill would indeed have helped a bit to lighten the shadow area and provide a tad of snap to the image.  Whatever, I also agree that it's a nice image in any case; could be improved (couldn't all our work?) but certainly not a candidate for the trash bin.  Best, LM.

A most lovely portrait this is! I'm liking the color version and seeing the colorful beads.

-r-

Two things caught my eyes in both the color and the grey versions, the beauty of the model and the dead space which adds a lot, very lot to the image, very well done indeed.

The image was unfairly rated, despite its technical accuracy.

Regards