Love the expression, sharpness, and general composition, and agree with others that avoiding overprocessing is a big plus here. You have a lovely daughter and captured the moment well. I think the background does pull the eye away from the girl. Not the upper part of the wall, which is indistinct enough to add interest without being distracting (and the color tone there is a nice echo of her shirt). The booth seat has an interesting pattern that does not need to be blurred, but the yellow-green fights with the blue shirt and her eyes, and the magenta/orange elements are too similar to elements in her face. Please don't exaggerate these thoughts into negative comments, as the image is excellent.
If you are using Photoshop, consider as an experiment using a hue-saturation layer for desaturating the greens and yellows about 1/2, then desaturate all colors a bit more, with a broadly feathered mask to protect her eyes, face, and shirt from the desaturations. Then it is easy to adjust the layer opacity so just enough background color remains to be interesting without being distracting. (I took the liberty of trying that and concluded that complete black and white conversion of background looks too contrived, but toning it down keeps a natural feel while allowing the eye to more comfortably study her face). I am no expert at this, and tastes vary, but wanted to pass along the thought. Thanks for allowing us to appreciate the image.
Best portrait in the challenge, easily the best. I give some credit to the model; her face is a lovely balance of prettiness and gravity. But the sympathetic composition; the simple, subtle lighting; and especially the restrained and natural processing (Oh, THANK YOU for that mercy) make this a really striking portrait, and you can have the credit for that. 10.
I hope all those who think that portraits have to be brutally sharpened and absurdly saturated and photoshopped into a parody of human beauty will take a few moments to reflect on the lessons of this lovely photograph. Maybe if they do they'll never say "Pop" again!
nice crisp, clean sharp details with your eye drawn straight to what you want to look at even though I get the sad feeling from this shot. Nicely captured, but I would straighten the sofa. Well done
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
