This is Miss Iceland 2006, Sif Aradóttir who was kind enough to model for us in this challenge. This was just thrown together after the real photoshoot, we were taking pictures of her in an evening gown with her crown and outdoor fashion photos. When I say we I mean my wife and I who took care of the makeup and stylizing of the photo, she put the petals on her. I assume I am going to get hammered for not meeting the challenge by a lot of people but I don´t care, I dig this photo and definately think it does meet the challenge so for those of you who dissagree, I say in a Mr-T tone "I pity you narrow minded fools" :P
Anyway, the power went off in the studio while I was setting up the lights and while Henny was still in the middle of the makeup!!! This is shot in almost complete darkness, I couldn´t really make Sif out in the viewfinder so I really had to guess if she was in focus and her facial expression. Fortunately I had my battery pack with me (for the outdoor photos) so I could power up one Bowens light, was going to light this with 4 of them. Lighting is one 100x100 softbox from above and used a reflector from beneath to light up her face and eyes. Was really surprised this came out as well as it did considering the makeup and photographing was made in near complete darkness.
As for post processing, usual raw conversion stuff, increased contrast with curves. Spent about 30 minutes removing one petal that was in front of her right eye (the left one on the photo) by using parts of her left eye and finally sharpened after resizing.
Ended up pretty much where I thought it would end up so no dissapointments here about the score and placement, after all, I really do like this shot and it came out pretty much how I visualised it with the exception of the lighting of course, hehe :)
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Never managed to vote on this image. On holiday so grabbing time on the 'puter when i can.
Would have voted this a big ten.
Can't believe this did not finish top ten at least.
Great shot as usual.
This was the most surpising end result of the challenge. I thought this image had a place in the top10, no doubt, and it still does in my mind. It had flowers put to very creative use.
This is a really well done photo. It should of maybe got a little higher. My only complaint is that I would of liked to have seen more lighting over her left shoulder!
I like this unique concept for a flower challenge. The lighting is really nice and smooth, and the focus is great. I'm not sure I like the color green for the background.. maybe a baby blue or pastel purple would work well too. The composition and pose is great, and the catchlights in her eyes look good.
How much eyelash glue did that take?! Creative take on this challenge. Nit pick thing is there are some highlights that seem blown out on her hair, and I find the dark eyeliner a bit distracting. It takes away from the idea of petals as lashes
Wow, good photo! The model is so good looking thought that it probably doesn't work all that well for "flowers"; I sort of wish she weren't wearing such heavy eye makeup, makes the flowers look like a mask, rather than her looking like a flower (if that makes sense). (8)
Love the idea... I think it would have been a little more effective if the top petals were standing up and visible rather than edge-on. I'm undecided if the eyebrows should be visible or not ... you'd have to play with just how high up the top petals should go.
In any case, I love the color scheme (red/green) and the model is just gorgeous with those pretty blue eyes and soft skin. Lighting is excellent giving highlights in the eyes and on the lips with a nice soft lighting on the cheeks. Well done.
I had this problem recently, the makeup was distracting you probably will get some comments regarding the eyeliner but the model is beautiful. I really like the lighting in this shot. Looks like a Larus shot?
something 'icelandic;)' about this i guess
one has to do this kind of portrait really good or it might turn out just silly
this is far from silly but more like.eh ..delicate
great diagonals skintones light model backdrop etc
(little nitpick..maybe clone out the unruly hair beside her right cheek)
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