This is Agla Harðardóttir, first time photographing her for DPC, although I have photographed her before. Me and Henný have been wanting to do an "Elf" series for a while now in the style of "Mystical Gaze" and we both thought Agla would be a perfect candidate for it, she has got really beautiful eyes and a certain elf like appearance. I know the ears are not really prominent in this shot and I kindof like it that way.
Only used natural light, I did however bounce some of it back to her face using a silver reflector. I am sure some really anal and self proclaimed catchlight experts are going to comment on it not meeting the challenge because of that but I´ll be damned if I have to clone the reflector out of her eyes just to please the DPC voters, if using a reflector to bounce sunlight around no longer qualifies as natural light I am not really sure I want to be a part of this community anymore.
I really like the shot as it is, I really like her expression and what she is emoting with her eyes. I don´t think it will score nearly as well as "Mystical Gaze" but I don´t really care :)
As usual, raw conversion in capture one where I tweaked white balance, contrast and saturation, added vignetting and took away some blemishes in photoshop, curves for contrast and sharpened after resizing.
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Damn this was IMO a top 10. Guess there are a lot of anal people like you said. :P Still a great shot, you should be very happy with this shot. I think the "Elf" type shot was the first shot I really thought, "Man this guy is good". So I think that taking a few more with the mystical look would be bad ass. Great shot man and keep up the great work!
Edit: P.S. I don't think you should tell her that she has the elf look down. :P
A prettily composed portrait - the flowers in the hair provide a nice romantic touch. I am not keen on the post-processing, and in particular the orange shadows, which give a harsh look at odds with the romantic style pose.
Great DOF and sharpness and clarity are right on the money. Like the editing also. I think the editing or reflector may have taken away the natural light look a tad. The expression is great and the eyes and lips look very nice. Great job. 8
Ok, this is the second shot in this challenge that looks like one of Larus', so now i'm confused. This is a great shot, however i do think it's slightly overexposed, i.e. between the eyes, i'm guessing there was a strong reflector used to good effect here.
This is interesting and familiar looking... In my opinion, the processing is way too heavy handed. She is so pretty that with slightly less contrast and saturation or whatever is making her look so orange, it would be much nicer. Her eyes look great and the general idea (comp, clarity and all that good stuff) is very nice indeed.
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