Celetial Bodies Sepia
by AP

Comment:
very nice. what settings did you use?

Through the Rain
by librodo

Comment:
amazing portrait. great mood. congratulation on #4, although I think the score you get is not up to the quality of the picture.

Exposed
by lovethelight

Comment:
The light bulb makes the photo. Well the model too, but the bulb really adds to the balance and originality of the shot. Good tones too. well done.

Unfinished
by SherwinJames

Comment:
For sure the most original of the "half portraits". My only regret is that the top left part of the hand is a bit blown out. But very nice, well composed and executed. Should be on or close the home page.

Half a cup o'daisy
by Budya

Comment:
Love the composition, lighting, crisp black and white tones. A winner.

the Tooth Fairy made him rich
by timfythetoo

Comment:
Funny, That's about the photo I had in mind for the challenge. Only my boy is too young to cooperate enough! Good lighting, simple and nice idea. I just wonder if the DOF effect is not a little too pronounced.

Livin' on the edge (of poverty)
by aduka

Comment:
Not sure how this will fare at DPC. But I really like it. The simplicity, the tension, the composition. I may have preferred it without the shade at the bottom, but great nonetheless.

Grazing Through the Early Morning Mists
by AlexSaberi

Comment:
amazing picture. And meeting 7 deers like this is extremely lucky too!

A Girl and Her Horse
by Donna21

Comment:
If I may venture one advice, you should avoid direct sunlight for a portrait. Well I guess there are no rules, but this one is a good place to start. If you look at the pictures in this challenge, you'll see that the best ranked one where you can see similar direct sunlight spots on the subject is #49.

One issue (among others) is that the "dynamic range" of your camera is limited. That means that your camera cannot render strong lights or deep shadows as well as you see them. Those sunlit highlights are almost always going to appear "burnt" (no details) like on her leg or her shoulder.

Furthermore on a more artistic perspective, it gives very harsh contrast. So unless there is a direct artistic quality to that, it's more likely to be detrimental. Highlights are usually catching the eye. And of course bringing the viewer's eye to a place of no interest and burnt highlights is not what you (usually) want.

The usual result more often than not is that this will give your photo a "snapshot" or amateurish look.

Most of the time, you should try to avoid that. There are many ways to do that such as: shooting when the sun is low (very early or very late), shooting when it is cloudy, shooting in the shade, shooting inside with diffuse light coming from a window, shooting with the sun to the back of your subject so that the illuminated part is "behind" and does not appear (but this raises other kind of issues too, like flare etc).

There are of course exceptions. For example . Here the sunlight is harsh, but the photographer tried to use it purposely not randomly. Because the whole of her body is lit, it draws the eye to the main subject. And the photographer managed to keep enough details in both highlights and shadows (he himself acknowledges that there are some issues in that respect), despite harsh conditions. Probably helped by a little post-processing?

I hope this post will not seem inadequate to you. I personally dont know much, but always found DPC to be a helpful site to learn thanks to other people ideas and comments!

Welcome to the site, and keep posting! good luck.

Message edited by author 2007-07-27 13:50:23.

Maiden
by grigrigirl

Comment:
I already said how much I appreciate this picture. Now I just discovered the slide show and it is amazing.