Her Serenity Maskby
rwouthuisComment by RKT: Hi there...and greetings from the "Critique Club"
Well Richard...I can quite honestly say that I find not a thing amiss with this image...no very helpful...I know. The soft moody light is very effective and quite flattering. The grain is also very pleasing and looks quite a bit like "real" film grain. The lighting, the grain, and Sheryl's expression all come together very nicely to make one lovely emotive cocktail.
Upon further study, I almost detect a bit of a smirk? Am I deceived? This brings a smile to my own face in relating this smirk to the whole "mask" idea...your wife is a tolerant woman indeed, but then again she is working on a masters in education so I should think tolerance is quite a large part of the whole teaching gig...hmmmm...she is definitely due for a bit of pampering, don't you think? : }
I think your choice of B & W was perfect, then again I favor B & W, sometimes color can be distracting...it all depends on the image really, and taste....we all have different tastes. One thing I might suggest, and I use them all the time, are Duotones/Quadtones. This article found at
Luminous-Landscape, is quite imformative.
Here are couple of examples of how a quadtone could change this image:
The top example uses a quadtone you can get
here, the sepia example is a quadtone I came up with. Quadtones are fun to experiment with, I hope you don't mind my borrowing your image so I could show you just how a quadtone can subtly change an image. I use the top example quite often, it reminds me of how an actual B & W print looks after being Selenium toned, something I did often back in my darkroom days. Anyway, I think I've rambled on long enough, but if there is anything else you'd like to talk about, please do not hesitate to contact me...now go give Sheryl a foot rub! She definitely deserves one. : }
Message edited by author 2005-11-03 13:54:11. 
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