kalense

This is an excellent shot, with good rhythm and an interesting contrast between the colourful model and the background.

For me this is cropped too tightly. Her limbs almost touch the frame of the photo, and it looks as though she's holding it open - like that room that slowly squeezes down in the Edgar Alan Poe story. There's an uncomfortable tension between the freedom of her pose and her loose hair and that prison of a crop.

It's certainly eye-catching. Your control of the light levels and the exposure is excellent.

The difficulty with a shot that includes a light source is the way that light source should illuminate the other objects. Here the candle illuminates nothing. There's a rectangular light source reflected in the clock and the glass, suggesting a window off to the right with daylight outside. There's a second slightly weaker source of light off to the left, still much stronger than the candle. So why is the candle lit? There's a jarring note there, and I think that the whole thing would be far stronger if the candle were simply there, but not lit.

Mark, I'm new to photo.net, so I don't yet know the etiquette. But since I'm a blunt bloke, I'll be blunt.

You say you don't like the transitions. Nor do I. Those haloes spoil the shot, and it looks to me that you've overdone the sharpening on the rock too. The sky seems too contrasty, which pulls it forward into the same plane as the rocks.

The photo certainly doesn't lack drama, and the light is wonderful (if a little harsh) but I think you should trust your original shot a bit more and go lightly on the post-processing.