First portait

Well, hey. I thought I'll put myself to the POTN critique. This is my first flash, my first diffused flash and my first flash portrait. And I'd like to know how can I improve.

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Generally, I like the pose. That said, the hat is a bit overwhelming. I think it needs to be balanced more (perhaps more shoulder/decolletage. Also, the skin tone seems sickly.

I like the pose, too. The overall exposure looks a little dark, which contributes to the slightly odd skin tone. I think I would have adjusted the crop slightly… lower the camera slightly, to crop more of the hat and reveal more of the hands, which would place the eyes slightly above the center of the image. But overall, quite nice.

There is a lot that I like about this shot: model (!), pose, framing (bearing in mind eye direction) and light ratio (comparing key light side with the fill side). My issues are:

1) lack of light on the hat or possibly the processing has resulted in a flattening out of the darks of the hat which renders it as a flat shape that dominates the image.
2) the skin tones seem somehow subdued--I mean, I see the specular highlights (along the edge of the nose, e.g.) but it still seems like the skin tones are smooshed down somehow. I expect to see, e.g., a slightly brighter end of the gradient from bright to dark.
3) skin color balance seems to tilt green which may be just fine and within artistic license, obviously--but in general the hue does connote sickliness.

Christopher Steven b wrote in post #16595861
There is a lot that I like about this shot: model (!), pose, framing (bearing in mind eye direction) and light ratio (comparing key light side with the fill side). My issues are:

1) lack of light on the hat or possibly the processing has resulted in a flattening out of the darks of the hat which renders it as a flat shape that dominates the image.
2) the skin tones seem somehow subdued--I mean, I see the specular highlights (along the edge of the nose, e.g.) but it still seems like the skin tones are smooshed down somehow. I expect to see, e.g., a slightly brighter end of the gradient from bright to dark.
3) skin color balance seems to tilt green which may be just fine and within artistic license, obviously--but in general the hue does connote sickliness.

+1.

Thank you all for your comments. I will bear in mind especially these re skin tones. I was going for a dark, cold and desaturated look here, and with my general tendency to underexpose, I see this green tint quite often in my photos but did not realized how unappealing it is. Until now.

Thanks again for your input.