Untitled

A lot of distortion occurred after re-uploading the photo that was initially too large. There was no improvement after 24 hours, so I have removed the original posting and replaced it. Sorry for the two comments lost. 

All the way!

PDE

A very lovely photo, John. Well lit, well made.

Yes, John, replacing a photo on photo.net can take over 24 hours. When it is a minor issue it's usually not so bad but something like the distortion can be annoying.

This is a beautifully made portrait. The expression and eye contact are amazing. You have commented in the past about your usual simple lightiong technique and I wonder if that was true here. The lighting is very pretty!

Beautiful portrait!! I love it.

Thank you friends. Mark, this portrait is taken in natural light in the doorway of the balcony, the dark background is the inside of the room. I often use this for my portraits. The discreet catchlight in the eyes is just reflecltion from the white walls on the balcony (sunlight).

I like the light, the use of mono... 

but this girl is GAUNT. and it is very much ruining this photo for me. 

It makes her look alien. I also think that the makeup and the shadowing of the model is making her cheeks and temples look even more sunken inn and it's a bit off putting. 

Everybody likes different things, i think its a technically great portrait, but the alien looking girl is very wierd and ruins it for me.

sorry

Thank you Wenche-Margrethe, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. You are welcome to dislike a photo and say so, but this is about photography, not the physical attributes of the model and your description of her is offensive.

That said, she has a perfect BMI (Body Mass Index) and other's erroneous perception of this is irrelevant to the context of this artwork. Anyway, are we only to photograph people that conform to your  idea of beauty or perfection?

Excellent soft and sensual portrait!

Lovely like usual, master! :-)...Ciaomautoyou&her!

John

I think the biggest issue is makeup/lighting, I have no doubt she is healthy looking in real life but the way she has been portrayed, with the expression and everything, makes her look gaunt. 

and yes, we are all entitled to our opinion. 

PS: As a healthproffessional - BMI is not always a accurate way of deciding if a person or patient is healthy or not i.e a body builder for example will have a very high BMI but that does NOT mean they are obese or un-healthy just means they have a lot of muscle. Same with a lower end of "normal" BMI can still mean the person needs to eat something or that they are unhealthy thin. Just sayin there is no such thing as "perfect BMI".

Thank you. This is my true area of expertise and not photography. Body builders aside, BMI is the only medically acknowledged non-invasive physical measure of statistically demonstrated healthy life, in terms of morbidity and mortality, though more appropriate of course when used to measure populations. Anorexia is not the only cause of ill health, overweight leads to diabetes, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, stroke and cancer.

No problem whatsoever if you don't like the photo, no one has disputed that. But the fact remains that photo critiques should be limited to matters of photography and they should not include personal remarks about the subjects that can be perceived as being offensive, which is the case here. The model follows these postings and does not want to read that she looks likes an alien, nor do others, including myself.  In these circumstances, one should keep what you call one's opinion to oneself. 

John Peri is a master of photography. Technically perfect images. Wonderful portraits, very beautiful models.
this picture makes me sad ....tamarah

Thank you Tamarah. You are entitled to feel what you like of course, but it's just a picture with special makeup effects, surely a photographer understands that. If you look at the one posted previously, there is certainly no reason to feel sad about this subject or any photo of her, other than that perfection sometimes irritates people .. http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=12369232

Very nice picture and well toned. (as most of the time).  Just like to see your art.

Tones, gray scale, blending of detail to the back drop all expert traits and a mark of your skill.. Always MJ