She's not only conventionally beautiful, but as a dad, I've long recognized her inner beauty (which she gets almost entirely from her mom), and I hope I've managed to capture something of that here. Nora's a shy subject, and I'm very unskilled with posed portraiture. But when I showed this one to her, she smiled a little and admitted to liking it--a real feat, as she generally hates attention being drawn to her appearance in any way.
Honestly, that's far more meaningful to me than any rating I may earn here with it. :-)
-- AFTER RESULTS --
Wow. I have to be honest: I really never expected to enter this challenge because I just didn't feel like I was ready to take on this sort of subject, especially with so many REALLY talented and well-seasoned portrait photographers in our community. But there's something deeply gratifying to me (more as a dad than as a photographer) for this to have been my first Blue here. One day, I'll have to resurface this one when Nora is preparing to graduate high school and they do those "back then" retrospective slide shows for the parents. :-P
What made me decide to try is that when I saw that it was the day before and there were still fewer than a dozen entries overall, it felt like even if I entered something lackluster, it would at least help dignify and elevate the placement of more deserving entries in the end, and I'd still learn something from the process. So THANK YOU all so much for the comments and affirmation. It makes me feel more emboldened to step out of my comfort zone and try working more intentionally with people as photo subjects, even if I'm quite sure I'll never make it my main line of work.
A behind-the-scenes note: This was actually one of only two exposures I took. It wasn't originally meant to be my final entry. It was just a "test shot" to see if the lighting and concept would work. I think (ironically) Nora is probably looking so glamorous here partially because she was at ease not realizing that this was "the" shot in the first place--and neither did I. We had planned to have her put on something more elegant and come back and re-shoot a little later. But when I saw how this one looked in B/W conversion, I quickly realized I'd never achieve anything better. So rather than put her through all of the additional sitting, I just worked with what I had. That's actually a red athletic shirt (!) she's wearing.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 10 Avg (all users): 7.2692 Avg (participants): 6.5714 Avg (non-participants): 7.5263 Views since voting: 217 Views during voting: 65 Votes: 26 Comments: 9 Favorites: 0
Congratulations, both on your beautiful daughter and your beautiful portrait. I envy you, my daughter is all grown up and out of the house, across the country, so no more chance of using her as my go-to model ). The only nitpick I have, I would crop out the left part of the frame, possibly for a square format, that bright glare detracts from beautifully and softly lit face.
I'm so happy for you for this first place – congratulations!
When I first saw this picture, I knew it would win. It was my highest vote.
Your daughter has a pure beauty, which you really brought out with the soft light, fantastic.
I hope we'll see her here again in the future.
Becoming
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
