14.....Beginning of the End of My Little Girl.
by smardaz

Comment:
First, this is a great shot, and it deserves every ounce of its score. The expression on her face perfectly captures teen bordeom. Congrats on the your personal best!

Looking at your score, you got a lot of 6s and 7s, which shows the high technical quality. I'm actually surprised you didn't get more votes above that given the spot-on DOF and wonderful facial expression. And her eyes - there's a subject you need to explore more! :)

Now, the rest of my comment is in full knowledge that changing this shot in any way is a matter of personal preference. Scores higher than yours just mean you tweaked it in ways that matched more people's expectations, not necessarily that there's some arbitrary concept of "better" that you need to meet.

I'm guessing it was the lighting that kept you from an even higher score. Even with less-than-perfect lighting, though, you can do some amazing things with reflectors when shooting (just a piece of posterboard works great) and during editing.

I recommend playing around with soft light layers if you use Photoshop just to see how they work and see whether you'd be any happier with it different. Create a blank layer on top of the original, set the blending mode to soft light, and paint pure white over areas you want to lighten using a large-radius, very soft brush. Change the opacity to something low enough that it brightens without looking weird. You can read idnic's great tutorial for more tips.

Then do it again, and paint pure black over areas you want to darken. You'd be astounded at what you can do. See my highest scoring portrait as an example - I link to the original from there.

Even if you don't get anything you like better, it's a great technique to have in your toolkit. Again, congrats!

Message edited by author 2007-12-20 23:43:39.

maybe it was only a bad dream
by tnun

Comment:
Not a bad idea, but the execution is pretty low quality: low contrast and the branches are quite distracting.

eBay: Two Bargain Lights, Endless Possibilities
by lovethelight

Comment:
Nice, creative thought.

chuck taylors... the eBay way
by wanjun

Comment:
Wonderful color and framing. Am I seeing that the one on the right is a second left shoe?

Day One
by aberration

Comment:
Ha! I hope this does well. You've captured so much of the eBay experience: something you probably won't use, and it might not live up to the hype, but it's cheap! :)

The 5D Arrives
by 2mccs

Comment:
Congrats! I'd say you're showing exactly the right move. Why sit on a computer with that baby arriving? :) The dog adds a Norman Rockwell-like quality to the shot.

new bike
by whiteroom

Comment:
Ah, excellent! Love the concept, composition, and processing.

Too Soon
by JuliBoc

Comment:
Art. Nothing more complimentary I can say. I have to admit I might've missed the deeper story here had I voted this challenge, but with time to read your comments and really think, this has such a strong story that it's ... art.

While Mommy Works... A Childhood Lost
by BAMartin

Comment:
A very poignant photojournalism shot. Well done!

The Gate Way
by gclark

Comment:
Hey, that's a beautiful image to capture "heaven." How'd you do it?