Boy

[Javier]

[lovelife65]

Beautiful boy, but I personally find the strong highlights on his forehead, etc. distracting and they take away from the composition.

[Merlin52]

I like the idea Javier and the classic triangle of light is well controlled but for me I think the depth of field is too shallow, I would have liked more of the eye in focus

[Shadowman]

Nice shot.

[Manfred M]

Javier - the general rule in portrait photography is the the eye closest to the camera must be 100% sharp. Another more general rule is that anything in front of the subject needs to be sharp, while anything behind it can be softer; this is how the human visual system processes subjects and if this rule fails, the image looks wrong to us. In real life, we can usually tolerate some unimportant areas of an image foreground being a little soft, but not too soft.

This image fails both of these criteria.

[TonyW]

To me, this is a powerful image and not to be judged against what we would normally expect a portrait to be. It looks to me to be quite sad. Is that the intention?

[James G]

Javier,
All the comments being made made are valid.... but I'm in agreement with Tony. For me it is an 'arresting' image that generates a strong emotional reaction which over-rides the technical issues.

If you intended a 'simple' portrait it is not the best. But if you intended a 'story' then it succeeds.

[FootLoose]

Very expressive portrait, Javier.
I would remove the white spot on the shadow line about the bridge area of the nose. And remove or lighten the dark lines under the chin.
The highlight areas do seem to be a bit hot to me but that is possibly just my screen.

Otherwise I think the areas in focus are sharp enough. If we all follow the "rules" in portraiture or any other area of photography or art, we will all produce the same kind of images, and will still be doing so in a hundred years time.