Jillian

[Lisa H]

This is a gorgeous 11 year old little girl from a session I did recently. I'd love CC on anything you see...lighting, comp, etc. Basically anything, am I allowed to ask for that? Still getting used to the rules around this place.

Ok, so here are the stats:

Canon 5D Mark II + 70-200mm 2.8L II
ISO 500, 1/125, F-3.5, All natural light + white, 52" round reflector camera right. That's about it! I didn't use any of the typical 'portrait' tricks here (aka no portraiture or skin smoothing, no reducing any circles under the eyes, etc). I wanted a very natural shot. I'm a HUGE sucker for moody b&w portraits. Let me know what you think!

[SusanH1970]

Nope, no CC from me. Love everything about this. I'm a sucker for moody BW's too, and I love the naturalness of this!

[MrJones]

you are an inspiration!
no CC here.. just a perfect picture.

[docxnoel]

I think................. you are GREAT!

you always nailed a connection between your images and to the viewers.

no further CC, your work is always a good/best example.

[Ridgetop]

Hard to critique something when it appears to be 100% wonderful.

[Tito87]

I'd love CC on anything you see.

You're asking us for advice!!! You should be telling us how to do it. All I can say is...Wow, beautiful picture!

[Niresangwa]

Obviously it's a strong shot (which I think you knew when you posted it , that's not to say that there aren't things that can be discussed - at this level however, it's more a matter of taste than pointing out technical miscues.

The tone of the image is definitely a matter of taste. For me, it's a little too dark in the eyes, and they look flat. It's one thing to have the periphery a darker tone, but when the white of the eyes are so grey, it's another.

Two choices if it were to be addressed: first lighten the whole image with a gentle curves adjustment, though that will completely blow the hot spots on the left side of her face. The other is to gently brighten her eyes (white brush, colour dodge at 3%...over-do it slighty, then reduce the opacity of the layer to taste) would be enough to avoid it looking odd...

Secondly, and arguably this is a point of technique, is that the DoF being so slender, (a necessity in a portrait of this style) you have her shoulder tack sharp and her eyes at the very end of the in-focus zone.. the burette in hr hair you're already out of focus. I would much rather have seen the shoulder out of the zone rather than flower.

The dynamic look of the lighting certainly feeds into a dramatic look. There's a sharp contrast from one side of the face to the other, maybe too sharp. She has those cute freckles on one side, the other, you've lost that detail. The fact that her hair is dark saves the contours of the face and prevents the blown highlights doing too much damage, but, it's there...(it does look like it could be brought back in PP, but hard to say at this size on this monitor)

you're a proponent of using natural light, as you've stated elsewhere, and as beautiful as it can be, i'm sure you're aware it's a harsh master. I probably would have been inclined to turn her away a little more from the sun and retain the details - did the hot spots show up on your lcd?

Composition is vanilla, but in portrait orientation, you filled the frame well. I would have been inclined to take a few shots, including a landscape with her positioned on the left of the frame, again, just to give some latitude to taste, but there's certainly nothing problematic with how you chose to compose and frame. There isn't much 'room to breathe' but with a model this pleasing, you don't really need it.

Just details, beyond the point most people would care about.

I like that she's not smiling, and she pulls off the ambiguity of the look very well...

[Lisa H]

Thank you all so much, especially to Niresangwa for the detailed CC. I love seeing how other people view a photo, and ideas for improvement in the future. I truly appreciate it!

[oldwolf]

On top of what Niresangwa said, here's my two cents.

If you do use curves to lighten up the picture a bit you could always apply a gradient mask to it so that it lightens up just the right side of her face/left side of the picture.

It's a very strong picture. The only thing that bothers me is that you lost a little bit of detail in the hair on the left side of the picture and the shadows seem a bit deep there.

Otherwise, you're work is great and I've enjoyed looking at the pictures you've posted.