Makeup close-up shot...

A little glamour glow applied, the DOF is intentionally focused on the eye and lips...
Natural lighting - any comments, suggestions, or how you'd do it differently?

Excellent shot. Very good lighting, white balance and skin tones. Also a very lovely model. The focus on the eye really makes the shot. The half face and focus on the lips adds to the female mystique and sensuality. (Well... lol... I've never been able to figure out females so it works for me.) The hair does a nice job of framing in the face. Very good use of depth of field to achieve your objective. I don't know that I would do anything differently.

Very nice shot! Gotta love the shallow DOF from the 50 mm 1.8.

I agree.......very nice DOF and very pretty model. Everything works as you wanted. I wouldn't do anything differently either.

This is a beautiful shot, EoI. Composition, depth of field, perfect model. The only thing I would do if it were my photo (because this is really a matter of preference), is warm up the skin tone just a wee bit (and I mean like as little as 100K warmer, maybe), and brighten the eye whites and catchlights just a little --there seems to be a very slight blue tinge to the whites and especially the catchlights --and I'm talking very slight, and any modifications you make to this should be very miniscule. IMHO

Really nice work, Essence!

Since I can always count on you guys for a good critique, I'm sharing the original image with you:



Feel free to get creative...

FWIW, the catchlight was nature's softbox - perfectly gray sky, coming in through a large set of windows.

I personally agree with Helene, and like the tones in the original a wee bit better. Looks more real. Crop that one and call it a day. Nice work!

Now that I see the original shot, I like the crispness of the eye and lips better on this shot. Both shots are pretty darn good, IMHO.

Hmmmm....I guess everyone may have a different idea as to a good glamor shot. To me the second shot has blotchy skin tones and is distracting from the composition. I do agree with Jack, the lips and eye are better in the second one. Both are very good.

Joseph, the "second one" is the original image, before cropping and post production. It's there for people to download and manipulate in order to show how they would do it differently than the end result (original post).

EOI, I understood the second one was the original shot. My post was to agree with your smoothing out the skin tones.