I know I am taking a big risk by attempting a legendary photograph. But I do not know any other way to learn but by expanding my wings and trying tougher things.
This is my sweetheart, who was dead tired after a 30 hour job shift, but co-operated for 10 minutes, enough for me to click a few shots.
I may get killed (among other reasons) for not depicting the mysterious eyes of the original subject. But I couldn't help it within the rule set of the challenge. Regardless, my wife tried a lot to open up her eyes quite big, but that started looking unnatural.
By the way the subject showing more hair in this version is intentional. It relates to the title: "If the Afghan Girl had a choice". It shows her being a little liberal, more confident (compare her gait/tilt and the brows to the original portrait).
I honestly do not care how this image does with the scores. Because after almost 8 hours of on/off processing, I am already in love with this picture.. specially because this makes me gaze into the eyes of the love of my life!
I hope it can connect to at least one other person (voter) and can convey what I see in this face.
Good luck to everyone!
PP Details:
Shot as NEF (Large) + JPEG (Fine).
Opened JPEG in Photoshop.
Duplicated the original layer, one each for the following, and masked out non-relevant pixels:
- Face - main, highlights, shadows
- Eyes (Core), (Iris-Border)
- Hair-main, Hair-line
- Scarf
- Background
Adjusted hue/saturation/dodge/burn individuaally for each layer
Merged
Saved as PSD
Downsized for web
Saved as JPEG.
ETA POST CHALLENGE (06/24/2010): Looking at how many people thought these eyes are scary, and considering that I see her heart in there, I gotta say: I married the right person. I love her so much that I see love in her green pupils;-)
Statistics
Place: 81 out of 92 Avg (all users): 4.9662 Avg (commenters): 5.2727 Avg (participants): 4.4773 Avg (non-participants): 5.1731 Views since voting: 10892 Views during voting: 542 Votes: 148 Comments: 13 Favorites: 0
The eyes look really weird - the sclerae are too white, pupils look unnatural. There is also haloing around the scarf. Compared to 15 other similar shots, I just can't justify giving you a good score sorry. 4
Overall, a very good reproduction, especially the eye color. One thing I don't like is what appears to be some haloing around the scarf. Kind of gives it an un-natural feel.
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