A Naughty Wife-to-Beby
davidus428Comment by dahkota: Greeting from the Critique Club!
From your notes, I see that you would like a critique of the technicals. Personally, I think this image is pretty sound technically. It could use a hair more DOF to add a little more sharpness - its not soft focus and its not razor sharp - wavering somewhere in the middle that really doesn't resolve well either way. I think it could also use a slight boost in contrast, but that could be fixed by selectively sharpening just a little bit more. (I took the image into photoshop and used a very light sharpening and a very slight curve adjustment that for me, helped the image contrast). The face is in sharp focus; the hand, which is the largest, closest to the center object that is also mentioned in the title, is not. The face is beautiful; the hand is not.
Compositionally, and I know you didn't ask for that in a critique, I think this image suffers a little. The hand, the focus of the image is slightly soft (while not soft focus). The hand is also in an awkward, indelicate postion; this fights against everything else in the image - the colors and tones, the rest of the objects in the image. The hand also seems overly large - a bit jarring if you look long enough. The hand fights against everything else it seems the image is trying to portray. The relationship of the hand to the face, the hand to the flowers - its all so close and compact it feels very unnatural. I put my hand in the same postion and couldn't figure out why anyone would position their hand there unless they had a splinter. I understand that that is the point - but I don't think it works well here. Maybe if her smile had been different...
Relation to the challenge: The challenge was "faceless portrait." I would say yes, this is a facelss portrait in that it is of a person not showing their face and it gives me a sense of the person. For me at least, this met the challenge much more strongly than many of the the other entries.
In the end, I think your lighting is very well done. I think the concept is excellent. I think your toning and hue choices are great. I just think it missed in the composition of the elements. Probably not what you wanted to hear - but its only one person's opinion.
Photographer found comment helpful.