An Ossetian Girl

[zebra]

[Manfred M]

Another nicely done image. I like the way you have positioned the large vase(?) to provide balance with your subject. The catchlights in the eyes always give a portrait a bit of life.

If this were my image, I would burn down some of the hot spots one the forehead, nose and chin as well as cloning out some of th stray hairs.

[zebra]

Thank you! I find your observations most useful.

[Shadowman]

Nice exposure on the model but this looks more like a compositional exploration than a portrait. To me there are too many elements in the background that draws my eyes away from the model, I find myself more interested in the background shapes than the model. I think the background elements would work if their size ratio were significantly smaller than the main subject.

[shreds]

With portraits I often crop out lots of irrelevant items, or exclude them in the first place although attempting to show a portrait with a sense of place and including that in the composition them becomes a different kind of portrait. I do think this shot would crop in nicely but would not be an 'environmental' portrait.

Clearly it was not done with a MUA just out of picture and so I must say I really like the real life look and naturalness of the composition, even with a closer crop.

[DanK]

Nice exposure on the model but this looks more like a compositional exploration than a portrait. [/QOUTE]

This doesn't matter to me. I like both formal and environmental portraits when they are done well, and I am not troubled by images that fall in between. I like this composition.

[QOUTE]To me there are too many elements in the background that draws my eyes away from the model,

I don't agree that there are too many, but I too found my eyes drawn away more than I would have liked. IMHO, the problem isn't that the other elements are there. The problem is that some of them are very bright, and in addition, they are on the wrong edge of the image. I think the answer may be simply to darken bu burning the bright areas, perhaps adding a vignette after that. The latter would have to be slight because of the tight crop on the right. I tried some sloppy burning of the bright areas of the background, along with a much less substantial burning of the areas Manfred suggested, and I think it helped.

[rpcrowe]

If this were mine, I would make it a portrait of that handsome young lady with the piercing eyes by eliminating some of the background. I did not smooth her skin but, did remove some temporary (I think) blemishes which drew my attention away from her eyes. I lowered the brightness a TAD and reduced the warmth just a little bit. The border would be totally optional but, it seemed to me that the portrait was just floating around without a border. The border put some limits on the portrait....



If you object to the liberties I took with your image, I will be glad to remove it...