Self portrait

[Melanie90]

[Shadowman]

Nicely done, very sultry.

[rpcrowe]

I love this portrait. It is stunning!

At first I thought that removing a bit of the shine on your nose and perhaps brightening your visible eye a tad might work

However, I think that the original version looks better...

[ionian]

I like this Melanie, I think you've done a good job with the lighting, and I like the toned mono.

This is not a criticism, but I'm trying to work out why you've composed with yourself so far to the left of the frame. The light suggests it would be more natural to have the negative space on the left. I'm interested in your decision on this, just for my information. At the moment I find the balance quite unnerving - but this may have been your intention.

As a suggestion for future shoots, if you have more than one light, consider putting some light on your backdrop to create a gradient or a hair highlight with a grid or snoot, lit from behind at an angle, which could define the edge of your hair on the right without adding any light to your face.

[scully]

nice, I love working with shadows in portraits

[Manfred M]

This is an interesting image and quite dramatic. I assume this is the effect you were after by using split lighting.

This type of lighting is tricky enough to work with when you are photographing someone else, doing it as a selfie is quite a challenge and you have pulled it off quite nicely. I think that the monochrome approach works well in this image too.

[Sergio M.]

I like the mood created with your portrait. Very attractive and well done.

Sergio

[Melanie90]

I like this Melanie, I think you've done a good job with the lighting, and I like the toned mono.

This is not a criticism, but I'm trying to work out why you've composed with yourself so far to the left of the frame. The light suggests it would be more natural to have the negative space on the left. I'm interested in your decision on this, just for my information. At the moment I find the balance quite unnerving - but this may have been your intention.

As a suggestion for future shoots, if you have more than one light, consider putting some light on your backdrop to create a gradient or a hair highlight with a grid or snoot, lit from behind at an angle, which could define the edge of your hair on the right without adding any light to your face.

Hi, I apologize for the later of my answer. I composed myself to the left as usually the eye reads the image from the left. Also, the bright side of my face is the left one. Furthermore, I wanted to create a sense of ambiguity and mystery, in addition to the use of the split lighting, which I couldn't have reach by composing myself to the right. For this picture I used only one light, a table lamp, holding it with my right hand as my room is quite small, then obviously I couldn't use more than one table lamp.

[ionian]

Thanks Melanie - I thought you were using flash so you've done really well to control the light like that with a lamp.

[mknittle]

Very nice portrait I like the mood. When considering how you did it it is outstanding!

[Melanie90]

Thank you for your comments!