Firsts
by anthonyczaja

Comment by Lionsitaly:
a little dark but in my opinion nice idea !

Miss Brown
by anthonyczaja

Comment by sfalice:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

You chose a suberbly beautiful subject for your entry in the High Contrast Challenge. Those classic features could take the emphasis on line and contour and still win through.

It is the background that troubles me. It competes tremendously with the subject, "Miss Brown," and leaves the viewer confused as to what you want the viewer to look at. I'm not the one to suggest what background you should use; you know your territory, I don't. But I would suggest that with a model like that, and with High Contgrast as an objective, you simple the background down to concentrate attention on the model.

Still, it's a powerful image and I'm delighted to have had the chance to study and enjoy it.

SFAlice

Miss Brown
by anthonyczaja

Comment by Tammer:
I like the area around the eyes and the background is pretty good. For me though, the white is overly done.

Dew & Light
by anthonyczaja

Comment by Artyste:
Hello, and Greetings from the Critique Club. I'm your Critiquer, Artyste, and our specials for today are honesty and a well balanced offering.

Initial Thoughts

I like it, but something's wrong.. I am seeing blur where I expect to see focus.

Composition / Content

That initial thought can be brought up here in this section. Typically, (and especially on a website where load times can be a little slower from some people), you generally don't want to turn them off a photo before the photo even loads. (I know, it's superficial, but hey.. welcome to DPC). In this case, your use of the focal point being in focus in the bottom half of the image probably caused a few people to vote you a little lower than they might have. For an image such as this, it's probably a little better to bring your focal point up to the middle, and allow the forground to be OOF. Other than that, you can see that you scored pretty well, and it's definitely a good image with a theme that is well recieved here.

Background

What can I say? Using a shallow DOF is a great idea, and a black background really pops the colors of the leaf and droplets. Good choice.

Camera Work / Technical

Your choice of shallow DOF is a good one, IMO, but again.. I would bring that focal point into the center of the image so as not to throw off the initial viewing. Having the forground out of focus would also allow a little more feeling of depth. Your focus is very nice and crisp though, and your lighting is great. The highlights really offset the shadows.

Digital Processing

Seems like you hit all the right processing steps, and the look of the photo shows you have a good feeling for what you want out of an image. Nice work. (There's some weird bokeh in the middle of the upper portion of the leaf, a little work with selective blurring there might have softened that up and cleaned up the image a little).

Fits the Challenge

D - Dew yup, there's dew. L - Light. Yup, got that too. Fits the challenge in my book :)

My Opinion of the Photo

Well done, and a nice photo to look at, but also a little cliche. We see this kind of thing all the time. For me, that's not a positive. However, I'm not DPC, and as we all know.. DPC *looves* the cliche, so great job on a well done photo that people obviously liked. Nice score, and good luck in future challenges.

Miss Brown
by anthonyczaja

Comment by loseme:
Good contrast, this is the kind of contrast I envision with a portrait.

Miss Brown
by anthonyczaja

Comment by Sherri1209:
Great Job. Terrific shadowing -- 7 --

Miss Brown
by anthonyczaja

Comment by Qart:
contrast has removed definition... nice artistic effect but a little too blown out... :)

BIRDS OF A FEATHER
by anthonyczaja

Comment by Jutilda:
To me, this was definitely worthy of a ribbon. Good luck on your high placement!!!

BIRDS OF A FEATHER
by anthonyczaja

Comment by Caine:
I love the action in this shot from the contorted pose and the skewed horizon.

Pineapple Delight
by anthonyczaja

Comment by jtf6agent:
Everything here works quite well together. The colors are great and strike nicely against each other. DOF is well done with nothing too distracting. Very nice focus and composition. A+ for creativity. You could have found a better way to display the ice cream other than the hand but other than that it was very nicely done.