Windswept

Wondering about the crop. Seems like too much room on the left, but

making it tighter, towards the square, cuts down on the energy.

Pretty happy with the light, color and camera work.

Beautiful portrait, very nice tones , I like her expression, I guess it works well the cropping of her head here, congrats and best regards // Salvador 

Beautiful!

Hi Doug, indeed there's something about the frame/crop that seems a bit off but I'm not sure how to improve it. I think the wind blown hair is essential to preserve so I agree that removing it will cut down on the energy. 

Staring at this for a while, I think it might be her black top that weighs too heavily as I look at her eyes with her nose/mouth and earring in my periphery. I wonder if photoshopping it white might make a difference. Another observation is that the eye appears awkwardly placed in the frame; it just doesn't look right, or maybe I'm just expecting to see more of her hair (above).

Probably not a very useful comment but I do think the light, camera work and color is superb.

It looks wonderful to me. I like the diagonal swirl of her hair across the frame. Michael may have a point about the black top. It does drag my attention down to the lower right corner, but I think white would make the whole image look washed out. I think bare skin would have worked. But this really is just nit picking, it really is a beautiful, elegant portrait. Warm wishes, Linda

Terrific!  Thanks. I think Michael's right about the black shirt, and Linda's right about the bare shoulders.  I've tried to make dark clothing lighter before, and failed. Maybe there's another solution. Or maybe it's just another lesson learned by doing....  Maybe I can somehow crop the shirt out.  Or, the best and most fun solution: Reshoot it! 

This seems to work. This was trimmed off the image you see above, which was in turn cropped slightly from the original DNG file.  There's a little more room for me to play with. Thanks for all your support, and for helping me identify what was bothering me. 

Yup, the crop does seem to work, and I think Linda's right that bare skin might have worked better in the initial shoot. 

The thing I often have trouble judging is composition relative to displayed image size; full screen (at full resolution) will often take on a reverse feel/perception when compared to a small displayed view. I'm sure there'll be a difference in this case too.