Waiting In Vain
by Rooster

Comment by giljack:
Great shot, great looking woman, great expression as for who she is waiting for, what a dummy he is. Wonderful work!!! Its more than just a photograph, I can actually feel it.

tree trunk
by Rooster

Comment by thunderbug:
i think this is a finger... not a tree trunk! interesting color change

tree trunk
by Rooster

Comment by LobsterClaws:
looks like an elephant.

tree trunk
by Rooster

Comment by hgpayne:
Tree trunk? This looks like purple ink on a person's knuckle. My guess is the index finger?

Didi
by Rooster

Comment by graphicfunk:
From the Critique Club:
This is a beautiful soft image. The choice of colors is soothing. The olive green and inner garment weaves a wonderful image and of course, the background adds the exotic tinge. The hand placement is to be commended and the model, your sister, very natural. You did a good job but we owe her credit because her facial expression displays a sense of serenity and a unique quiet confidence.
The study has some minor imperfections and believe me, they are minor compared with the overall strong visual effect. Let us start with the cropping. Note the bottom of her left elbow. Here we have material folding in and out and when the eye moves from her lovely face it finds this distraction at the elbow. It would have served your purpose better to crop the image right above the right elbow. The benefit is to have brought the rest of the figure closer to the viewer. The second item is that of the right earring portruding or jutting out of the chin. here you had the choice to raise the angle a bit or simply to clone it out.
The third item is not as critical and this has to do with the eyes. I take the eyes as they are, but their beauty is not displayed. This happens when an image is soft, yet many photographers magnify the eyes and touch up the highlights very subtly a pixel at a time with pure white with a 40 percent or so opacity.
A good image and certainly a good contender. You can only get better. dan

Seriously Refreshing
by Rooster

Comment by thunderbug:
if this was taken later in the day, i think the colors would show up better and it would be an overall better picture. but it is well designed

Seriously Refreshing
by Rooster

Comment by jbsmithana:
At least for me, the model does not add anything to this shot. Seems to distract.

Seriously Refreshing
by Rooster

Comment by Damian:
Very clear, very good technical shot. Im not sure if the model works in this shot. I dont see the point to him. Other than that its effective.

Seriously Refreshing
by Rooster

Comment by melismatica:
Nice try but it isn't selling me. I'm distracted by the acne on the model's face and his looming presence overpowers the product. The bottle of Aquafina should be far more prominent. Remember what you are selling.

Editied post voting...and edited a second time for typos. ;-D

Hi there...I didn't mean to be insulting with this comment. When I said 'nice try' I wasn't being flip. I really did mean that it was a good effort. As a portrait, it is quite nice actually. Your brother is a handsome subject (I actually thought he was a hired model, in fact) I just felt that his skin needed toning down for the true feel of an advertisment. Models and actors don't really have perfect skin (ever notice Brad Bitt and Gwen Stefani have some acne scarring?). What they do have is artists who perfect their skin post-production.
Anyway, this was an Open Challenge and there wasn't much you could do about smoothing out the skin.
I was taking the idea of 'advertisment' fairly seriously in evaluating these entries so I felt something like that was worth mentioning. If this was meant to be a casual portrait, I wouldn't have commented on it.

In terms of the relative prominence of the product, I still feel that the bottle of Aquafina might have been emphasized more strongly. Perhaps with sharper focus and being really choosy with selecting a perfect looking bottle---one that has no wrinkles in the label. A trick I recently read about for photographing water is to replace it with white vinegar which stays very clear and uncloudy.

My only other feeling about this image is that the color cast is a bit cool and could use warming up in Photoshop. Your brother's skin which I imagine to be a lovely warm, golden brown looks rather dull and grey, possibly because of the weather conditions at the time of shooting.

You captured a lovely, intelligent expression, a natural pose, and managed some nice catch lights in his irises.

Message edited by author 2004-08-20 14:47:26.

Didi
by Rooster

Comment by GoldBerry:
Hey rooster! I really like this photo although I'm not a fan of neat image, it's barely noticeable. I like the use of her hands in the photo, creates so much more character. And yea, she's very pretty :-) Good choice of color [wardrobe] and background. It's interesting without overpowering her ;-)