Critique my latest portrait

It's good - if a bit creepy. Haha.

However, I feel the composition could be improved in my opinion. Try placing the masque along one of the rule-of-thirds cross sections. And, this might not be your taste, but I prefer a more creamy bokeh. I feel this one is a little harsh and makes me wonder if I forgot to put my contacts in.

But overall very creative and interesting. Good job.

Well, I'm gonna say definitely creepy, but I assume that's where you were going. I'm not all that fond of the bokeh either, and yet I think it kind of adds to the creepy feel. High likelihood that someone's in a shallow grave back there.

Although I do like using the the rule of thirds usually, I feel this one is fine by the edge. Perhaps even a little closer to the edge would be better so that part of the subject (?) is cut off. Maybe.

Dan

There's a very neat sense of creepiness to it. Especially because it's in a very unexpected environment. Whenever I see green and trees, I expect to see calm, peaceful stories. But this time, I'm greeted with a very odd entity.

The color and softness is spot on. Any sharper and he would've felt fake instead of dream-like. Any softer and it would've felt poorly done. I can also do without the bright spot in the middle. It really distracts the picture from the model.

I suspect you can execute this even better if you throw in more story into the shot and pick a different backdrop.

Im not creeped out by it at all. To me it looks like a statement about the actor or acting. Its just the heavily blurred background that doesnt make sense. There's a diagonal pavement line next to the guys leg which leads the viewer to assume the long reeds/grass on the far lower left of the picture is actually next to the actor. The fading of sharpness doesnt make sense at that point. The confusion is caused I assume by the compression caused by a long lens so its something to watch out for. I generally think it should be more depth of field.

If you are trying to freak me out then change the subservient pose of the model to something more aggressive.

I like it! It looks a bit creepy to me which is why I like it. Very interesting picture.