Lady in red
by asij

Comment:
...and a few other colors as well! The colors and black background make the flesh-tones pop out of the picture, but I find her hands/legs split the attention with her face. I'd try cropping just below the top of the grip on the umbrella, around her elbows but above the knees.

A Penny For Your Thoughts
by BooZon

Comment:
Excellent lighting control (or removable lenses?) to shoot through the glasses with no reflections. I guess the "cold" lighting scheme suits the subject matter, but seems a little unusual for a portrait.

Alicia
by jodiecoston

Comment:
Simple, unusual composition and limited color pallette make this effective, almost an abstract. The eyes usually look odd shot this way -- I'd try to have them look down and not at the camera so they don't look dead/comatose. In this case, her eyes are partly-closed enough to mostly hide the effect.

All Aboard
by puma

Comment:
It's hard to shoot one like this without catching yourself (or something undesirable) in the reflections in the sunglasses. A nice, relaxed "candid" portrait.

Kat
by rubyrednails

Comment:
Pretty even lighting and minimal shadows give you a good exposure. This seems as though it "can't decide" whether to be sharp or a soft-focus portrait -- it seems kind of in-between without being OOF either ... I also can't tell if your model is relaxed or tense ...

Harrison
by Frank Beckman

Comment:
The lighting seems kind of harsh and the colors saturated, giving him almost a cut-out look. The last baby picture I did, which had some similar issues, I ended up converting to a duotone so that the emphasis would be on the baby's cute expression and not on the surrounding colors.

solitude (my first trip to the mountains)
by fstopopen

Comment:

Originally posted by nshapiro: Nice use of the tree and foreground objects to give depth to this gorgeous view. A little fill flash might have been an interesting way to get a little more light on the trunk of the tree.

I was going to say almost exactly the same thing until I scrolled down and saw this comment. I'm not quite so concerned about the dark trunk though -- you have a lot of woody detail in the long branches, and sometimes a fill flash can be a little too much, but worth taking a secons exposure. If you have a tripod, try two identical shots with different exposures and try stacking/blending them to use the best parts of each.

Bella Fiore
by scalvert

Comment:
Reminds me of old-time oil painting; loss of a little highlight detail on the edge of the dress (at least on my monitor) is my only "complaint." I think it could have been even a little darker while maintaining the mood and detail. I think this was a good time to use a less-common full-figure portrait.

Free At Last
by EddyG

Comment:
Well darn it, not only a fine picture, but your post-shot comments helped me figure out I could edit that field after the challenge was over. D'oh, indeed :)

I usually just add further comments in the thread.

Summer at the Farm
by L1

Comment:
While enjoying some cool watermelon on a sultry summer afternoon may not be a universal experience, I think this photo does an excellent job of conveying what that experience might feel like, even (especially?) to those who haven't experienced it themselves.