Hello, and greetings from the Critique Club. The critique you are about to recieve is tailored for DPC challenges alone, and is not intended to be seen as an artistic critique per se.
Initial Thoughts
eeek.. Now this is different, and freakish.
Composition / Content
Nice composition, it works well. It's a great subject as well, showing off his features, although the expression is very odd.
Background
Black works very well on DPC, so it's a good choice.
Camera Work / Technical
Pretty good exposure (slightly dark in areas to my eyes), and focus is very good.
Digital Processing
You didn't list your processing, but from what I can see, it looks fairly heavy-handed. The veins in the arm don't look natural, and it has the look of some dodging and burning. The color of the skin is a little "sickly", which led to the comments I can see about him being dead or unappealing. The lighting on his face is a little hard and the tones don't flatter him at all, especially since they differ from the body so much.
Fits the Challenge
It fits the challenge, but I suspect that your lighting, processing, and subject just put off too many voters.
My Opinion of the Photo
Artistically, it's a very interesting portrait. However, for DPC, unless this kind of thing is done in a very technically strong and appealling way (check out Heida's entry), it tends to really just work against you. The differences in skin tones, the harsh lighting and contrast, and the "deathly" look are probably the main issues that led to the lower score. A wonderfully *different* shot.. but just suffering from a little too many smaller issues. Good luck in future challenges.
Good pose! Its almost like you have 2 things going on here and its hard to connect them in my mind. The head and then the body. Both are distracting from the other. Try to crop out one or the other, I think you will find it more powerful.
This photo appears to be underexposed. The overall appearance is sort of lack luster. the light on his neck appears to separate his head from his torso.
I don't really find this photo very appealing. It is like you have brought out all the negative things in this person (ie: the viens, pimples, untrimmed beard) Eyes are nondescript and dark.
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