Day 19
by mia67

Comment by SandyP:
Mia!! What a beautiful photo! There is such a light and sparkle in her eyes. I am in love with the way you composed it too -- tight and very close-up. You are a very talented portrait photographer young lady!!!!!

Day 19
by mia67

Comment by ErinM:
What a spontaneous and natural looking pose this is! Wonderful capture of that brilliant smiling face!

B & W Collection
by mia67

Comment by Sting11165:
(copied from forum)

First off, good subject, good expression, good composition, good looking kid. I really like the desat and border too.

The image has a lot of grain to it which I could go either way on. Part of me wants to see the whole thing softer with low noise, and part of my likes the grain (even exagerate it). I don't think either way is wrong, but I'd decide which way you want to go and try doing it a bit more than it is to see what it looks like.

It has good contrast but the arms are a bit blown out. For what you're trying to portray, the arms are a bit too harsh (this is definitely a photo you want to have a soft feel in both sharpness and emotion). Maybe a little burning would help the face draw the eyes.

The image isn't the sharpest, but I'm not sure it should be. It isn't a sharp moment.

Conclusion: Good image, maybe some minor post processing you can do to it. As far as avoiding blowing out the arms, I'll be the first to admit you rarely get a chance to think about stuff like that when shooting your kids. I think instead you should congratulate yourself on getting a good expression on her face: IMHO, that's the hardest thing of all.

If you have time, I'd say play around with some advanced processing: burning the arms, smoothing the noise (or increasing the noise), maybe even a vignette effect. It'd be a great learning experience.

Day 19
by mia67

Comment by Louis:
Wow, what a lovely composition. The portrait is helped by the pretty girl and her wonderful warm smile, but its focus and sharpness, duotone, and great tonal range make this really beautiful.

Day 19
by mia67

Comment by sevilduvarci:
beautiful portrait of a very pretty girl :) i love how her smile looks very warm and genuine. very nice processing again.

B & W Collection
by mia67

Comment by Greetmir:
Beautiful image, Meliha ... the only thing that I would change is to make the black portion of the border about 1/4 as thick or less ... just enough to define a line before the standard white border.

on a 640 X all you need is 5 pixels MAX ... I suggest 2 for this size and 10 pixels for larger ...

OK ... you could half the white border too ...

Message edited by author 2007-04-27 19:52:05.

Kingsfield
by mia67

Comment by ursula:
Beautiful light!

bone collector
by mia67

Comment by Artifacts:
Positives:
Nicely composed and conceived B&W. Well done technically and with the title adds errie interest to tantalize the viewer into ghoulish thoughts.

Technicals:
Technicals are strong. Lighting is good and lacks technical defects. Softness and tones in this composition are just right. BW treatment is perfect. Solid white background for this composition is the right choice.

For its thickness white is the wrong choice of border because it disappears into the background at the top. That is unnerving to many viewers.

The Challenge:
It is a nice abstract but it is possible that some voters gave a slightly lower score because they knew what it was and feel in an abstract they should not be able to recognize anything. (Yeah, there are voters like that)

It got a 5.7 which is .3 or so above the overall DPC average and .2 above the average for that particular challenge. I personally think it is much better than the group thinks but I am, GASP!, biased toward liking well done BW images. Pssst! Please don't tell anyone I am biased in my voting, its against the rules. LOL!!!

Suggestions:
You might consider changing the white border to black. A border should frame the whole image, not just up to the background. Generally speaking, in a BW image if the background is black then a white border works best and if the background is white then a black border works better.

Day 15
by mia67

Comment by TCGuru:
BEAUTIFUL high key shot!!! I am lovin this kid :)

Day 14
by mia67

Comment by Jedusi:
what a funny shot .lol. love the expression and snowy beard, or maybe you have interrupted him when he was shaving ?