Essense of the Woman

Lex

Zeiss 100mm ZF Makro-Planer @ f2, 1000 ISO, all indirect downward cast lighting from room, some in front and some behind. D3 camera, handheld, up close and personal with my girlfriend Trish. Note the eyes and lips. I believe it's my best portrait yet, truly art to me anyway. Even if nobody else thinks so, I do. I worked at it to create the effect I wanted in Post Processing, RAW/CS4.

ivar

Hi Lex,

For my taste the photo is a bit too underexposed and low contrasty.
The focus seems to be slightly more on the lips & left-eyebrow as opposed to the left-eye. I would have preferred it to be a little better on the eye, I think. Shooting at f/2 makes for a very thin DoF.

How close to your girlfriend were you when you shot this?

Mitchell

Art is in the eye of the beholder!

I also find this underexposed and lacking contrast. I think it also needs a levels adjustment to set the black and white points.

I'm not sure about the crop through the chin. It looks awkward to me. I would have left the chin and cropped more through the hair.

The shallow DOF with OOF eye is a matter of personal taste. I think it works here if that's what you were intentionally going for.

Nikolai

I see numerous flaws in this particular image (some were already called, some not), but since you apparently have no interest in learning, I think I'll keep my comments to myself...