Just Lottie

[mammarazzi]

A picture of my lovely daughter taken a while back when she was deep in thought as Mum practised her "Papparazzi" undercover stalker........she really had no idea I was taking a photo....untill now

[Reynold Mainse]

I like the shallow depth of field. Do you have any room with the image to crop her with a little more lead room? - in the direction that she is looking and below her neck? If it can be avoided it is always a good idea not to crop or frame anyone at a body joint... i.e. elbows, ankles, knees, hips, neck. nice choice to go B&W. It is a beautiful picture
Reynold

[rayallen]

This is a beautiful portrait and the mono treatment works well. Normally eye contact is supposed to be good but, given how this was taken, it is not necessary.
Hard to go wrong with such a pretty subject.

[speedneeder]

Joanne, gorgeous subject!
This aside, the exposure, DOF, and contrast all look great to me.
The soft background looks really nice - I'm always a little wishy washy on shallow dof's when the hair starts to fall out of focus, but in this case it seems to work very well. With the almost ethereal looking background the b&w works good too. I usually prefer portraits in color, but this one looks great in b&w.
Great photo.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Joanne,

I agree with Reynold about the composition having a bit more space for Lottie to look into, I considered a canvas stretch and clone attempt on your picture, but of course I could only do the left edge like that, so I know when I beat

I did/do feel it is a touch dim though, so while I had it in CS5 (briefly), I tried a levels adjustment and found that setting the white point at 230 gave 'a brighter but not too bright' result. I didn't think it was worth re-posting for that little change, so give it a go yourself and see what you think.

Great shot.

Cheers,

[speedneeder]

Joanne, Dave's post got me thinking about the overall exposure. I tried lightening it up just a little. To me this photo works either way - as you posted it gives it a kind of 'classic' feel, while brightening up could make it 'pop' some more. When brightening it up some, I thought it could use just a little sharpening around the eyes.

[rpcrowe]

I love them both...

[Donald]

Joanne

That is an absolute beauty.

I note the comments made, but I wouldn't touch a thing on the original. Go any harder on the contrast and you lose the 'simplicity' and harmony that makes the original.

[Loose Canon]

I'm going with Richard and Donald on this Joanne.

This is a total stunner.

[speedneeder]

Just for the record, I think it's a stunner too!

[mammarazzi]

Wow thanks for all your great comments and I also love the slight adjustment - it helps when you have such a beautiful muse, I just point the camera in her direction and magic happens.
Joanne xx