#1
by ralph

Comment by bob350:
Love the expression, sharpness, and general composition, and agree with others that avoiding overprocessing is a big plus here. You have a lovely daughter and captured the moment well. I think the background does pull the eye away from the girl. Not the upper part of the wall, which is indistinct enough to add interest without being distracting (and the color tone there is a nice echo of her shirt). The booth seat has an interesting pattern that does not need to be blurred, but the yellow-green fights with the blue shirt and her eyes, and the magenta/orange elements are too similar to elements in her face. Please don't exaggerate these thoughts into negative comments, as the image is excellent.

If you are using Photoshop, consider as an experiment using a hue-saturation layer for desaturating the greens and yellows about 1/2, then desaturate all colors a bit more, with a broadly feathered mask to protect her eyes, face, and shirt from the desaturations. Then it is easy to adjust the layer opacity so just enough background color remains to be interesting without being distracting. (I took the liberty of trying that and concluded that complete black and white conversion of background looks too contrived, but toning it down keeps a natural feel while allowing the eye to more comfortably study her face). I am no expert at this, and tastes vary, but wanted to pass along the thought. Thanks for allowing us to appreciate the image.

leaves
by ralph

Comment by scooter97:
Just a little dark.

#1
by ralph

Comment by Jessi:
Lovely portrait!!! Definitely deserves higher in my opinion...'

#1
by ralph

Comment by suemack:
Beautiful portrait!!! She's got the prettiest eyes.

#1
by ralph

Comment by Chinarosepetal:
What is this doing down here? It was in my top 15, beautiful portrait.

#1
by ralph

Comment by SaraR:
This was in my top 3 of the challenge - I just can't understand why others can't see in this photograph what I do.

#1
by ralph

Comment by SaraR:
Can't articulate why, but I really, really like this.

#1
by ralph

Comment by smudgeSMJ:
I like the lighting and good DOF, but the couch or wall is a very distracting pattern and takes away from this beautiful girl.

#1
by ralph

Comment by ubique:
Best portrait in the challenge, easily the best. I give some credit to the model; her face is a lovely balance of prettiness and gravity. But the sympathetic composition; the simple, subtle lighting; and especially the restrained and natural processing (Oh, THANK YOU for that mercy) make this a really striking portrait, and you can have the credit for that. 10.

I hope all those who think that portraits have to be brutally sharpened and absurdly saturated and photoshopped into a parody of human beauty will take a few moments to reflect on the lessons of this lovely photograph. Maybe if they do they'll never say "Pop" again!

#1
by ralph

Comment by bvy:
Cool landscape portrait. Love the background!