Delicacy

Vision and Originality: This is a great and almost mystical portrait. The pose feels formal without the symmetry that usually goes with formal images. We do not get to see the eyes of the model, and her heavy eye shadow, pose, and hair, almost suggest a temple priestess. All this gives a sense of mystery and surprise and makes you think and wonder.

Technique: the artist appears to use just one light (plus some background light) and yet, shadows are very well controlled. This means the lighting must be more sophisticated than it appears at first. The face is marvelously lit, with just a hint of texture from soft shadows, and yet it is clearly split lighting on the face, with one side darker than the other side, once again reinforcing the formal element. As an aside, the tones from lightest skin to blackest background appear very un-digital to me. It's very rare to see such subtle tones combined with strong contrast.

Impact: The strong foreground-background contrast makes this image very accentuated and in combination with the mystery elements, very powerful. The complete absence of hard shadows - no small feat - and makes this image extremely subtle.

Overall: Extremely well done, interesting, lovely. Grand in all respects. In my favorites for good reason.