I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by armando_m:
I think her face would make a wonderful portrait , use those eyes to stare into the camera
get to a spot with interesting light that highlights her features
she seems pretty relax in front of the camera, that is already a great start

In this shot the light doesn't help, it is flat, seems you used the on camera flash - from the highlight in her eyes.

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by ShutterPug:
The focus on eyes/face seems soft. No eye contact and expressionless look causes this to not connect with me, so it comes off as a snapshot.

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by Ken:
The first thing I noticed was the composition. I'm all for having it off center, but in this case I would have had more space on the right side instead of left. The eyes bother me. Her right eye is fine, but the left could have been a bit brighter. The sharpest area of the photo is the camera and glasses, where I would have preferred her eyes.

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by Tiny:
Average score for an average image, bad title.

It would have been 4 or 5 from me.

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by PenelopeK:
I agree with the person in the discussion thread who said that the strip of white shirt distracts. My eye was drawn there first, and then only after that to the face, but the white was always competing for my attention.

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by EL-ROI:
For a personal gallery, this shot is very acceptable. From a technical standpoint, the exposure is quite good. From a processing standpoint, you did well with the highlights/shadows. And you managed to capture some moodiness in the pose.

Some things to point to would be the focus, the composition and the postprocessing.

The image is not quite sharp which may be due to front focusing or some motion blur. It looks like the focus point is just in front of her face. Or I am assuming you were zoomed in to at least 80mm to 100mm using your lens. As a general rule of thumb for shooting handheld, I try to go no less than 1/shutter speed. You were at 1/100 but that may have led to some motion blur depending on how stabilized you were.

Others have mentioned the composition which could have been changed with a slight crop. For post processing, the face and skin appear slightly warm to me, and the eyes appear a little over-cooked.

As others have mentioned, the free study is a challenge to showcase images that excel in their category. No matter if it's portrait, landscape, street, abstract, nature, or other, photo's that rise to the top include dynamic elements such as movement, lighting, mood, etc.

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by Phocal:
Moved my reply on your thread to the photo:

To start with it has to be an exceptional photograph to do even decent in a free study and unfortunately this is not an exceptional photograph. Keep in mind this is my opinion about the photograph.

There is nothing that really pops and draw my attention, could use a little bit of punch in the colors so it is not so flat. The aperture is not enough to really blur the background (would have been better if she was farther away from the bushes) out so it's a bit busy. The image is also overall a bit soft. I would guess as a result of the slow shutter speed and being shot handheld (only guessing as I am not sure what focal length you selected or if a tripod was used). The softness would not be that much of an issue if the eyes were good and sharp but they are not and could use some dodging to lighten up the eye area to bring in the viewer. Would like to see a bit more space above her head, while I know that the rule of thirds can be broken I found that if you follow it (for most photographs) the composition is much better. Those are my technical things about the photograph. Those combined with just an uninteresting subject I can see why it did not do well.

Ronnie

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by tate:
Excellent point. DPC is a bad place to show people personal images that you love. Because an unexpectedly low score can needlessly alter the positive feelings of that image - albeit they really shouldn't ;)

Originally posted by tanguera: This image is likely suffering from what I like to call "context" issues. You were there, taking this photo, and the entire experience, location, relationship, etc., all factor in to create what is special to YOU about this image. To the viewer, none of those things are visible. What remains is a very average image of someone holding a camera.

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by Giles:
a 4 from me i tend not to dish out 5 its 4 or 6 and its an snap shot anyone with a phone etc is capable of producing slight off centre composition but thats it, no real dof, average girl holding an average camera, no eye connection or smile,

so basically picture pops up and in 2 seconds im done with it theres nothing that holds my attention.

why did you think it was worthy of more? what were the strong points for you?

Message edited by author 2015-03-10 13:44:15.

I love Canon
by bennettjamie

Comment by tanguera:
This image is likely suffering from what I like to call "context" issues. You were there, taking this photo, and the entire experience, location, relationship, etc., all factor in to create what is special to YOU about this image.

To the viewer, none of those things are visible. What remains is a very average image of someone holding a camera.