I like this one a lot. It is like a marble statue just by the way the relatively low contrast has played its part. The lighting also gives a sort of dichotomy to the model that I like!

I am not sure how you converted to black and white but I normally use the phosphor-green channel to convert my colour photos to b/w and it gives them a semi-metallic texture sometimes.

I'm not so sure the main problem is with the image being too "flat." I think there's still too much contrast between the dark and light parts of her face (and only so much that doging and burning can do). This kind of lighting would be great for emphasizing form on other subjects, but on a person's face, it seems a bit harsh unless you're going for an edgy look. I had the same problem with some of my Emily photos.

Kaveh, I don't remember exactly how I converted it, but I find that I tend to use the green channel quite a bit too. Using the red channel does nice things to skin, but it also seems to erase a lot of detail. Green seems to leave enough detail to be interesting. Unfortunately, this tiem I didn't get that semi-metallic texture you're talking about, even though that's what I am always hoping for. I wish I knew how to get it consistently! Or even somehwat consistently!

chiaroscuro, you know, we're always chasing natural sunlight and then when we get it, we don't know what to do with it! :)

It's funny, but I don't know if I can really see the contrast you're talking about. I think maybe I'm too close to this photo and I can only see the face, but not the technical details about the lighting. (Kind of like how kids draw faces way up on people's foreheads because they can't see the object objectively enough to notice that eyes are actually in the middle of the face.) I might have to give it a couple of days and look again. Or maybe you can show me what you're talking about.

Maybe I need to try Gaja's shadow suggestion (that she made here). Now that I think about it, it would probably save this picture. I'll have to try that soon...

Yeah, I find it's especially focus on the abstract properties of the image because I know emily. I don't know if this would help, but maybe looking at somebody else's photo would bring it into perspective, so here are two of mine from our photo shoot.

For a while I shot many like this before the contrast in her face started to bother me and I moved over to the side to take some more like this. I personally like the side view a lot better, because the lighting is even on her face. Personally, I think the lighting in the direct view makes this photo look a little unflattering, and it didn't match the soft look I was hoping for in a pregnancy photo. What do you think?

If I had one, I would have used a reflector to fill in the shadows on the dark side of her face. Of course, this was a quick job and I didn't play with these in PS besides desaturating them and ajusting levels, so maybe more could be done to improve the second one (like shadow/highlights or selective dodge/burn). I've tried shadow/highlights on people before (there was a section in the Kelby book on this), but I've found it has to be used carefully because it can leave images looking unaturally flat if you use it to an extreme.

Oops, in the first sentence, I meant to say that it's especially "hard" to focus on the abstract properties of the image. :)

Black and whites are very good at teaching the ins and outs of Shadow/Highlight and Diffuse Glow. You might want to try using a Gaussian Blur on her face to soften it up. I avoid using curves too much on portraits unless I'm going for something harsh and edgey.

The flatness is in fact an advantage I beleive in this shot .. Seems very natural.. Could push the curves a bit but I beleive it is probably better that way ..

Thanks Bonav!