Pensive

[mugge]

I took this image 4 years ago. The background was busy and too colourful for my liking I therefore converted it to mono to get rid of all the distracting elements. I really liked the expression and, being my wife's niece, helped of cause.

I tweaked it a bit. C&C welcome

Pensive by Ole Hansen, on Flickr

[Urbanflyer]

conversion was a good choice!

[Tom Barry]

Nice idea that works. There are two things you might consider. There are a few gray strips in the background, upper left, you might remove. And, for my taste, the background could be a bit darker.

[DanK]

A nice portrait. My one suggestion is to cool it down. The woman's face is so bright that almost no detail shows. Large parts of it are compressed into a tonal range from roughly 235 up, and sizable parts 240 and more. That isn't enough difference in tone to make the detail perceptible. For example, as a quick and dirty illustration, I pulled down just the top 2/3 of the histogram a bit:

[Manfred M]

+1 to Dan's comments. The whole image is too hot and the lack of detail in your subject is not working well. In portraiture we strive to show detail, especially in the face using shadows to contour the face.

Dan's edit improves the image, but the hot background is not working all that well for me either, as per what Tom has mentioned.

[mugge]

Thank you for your input. Second edit. Hope that this is better.

Pensive new edit by Ole Hansen, on Flickr