Help Deciding On A Portrait - all thoughts and comments appreciated

For this years local photo competition (anything goes) I am toying with the idea of entering street portraits. I worked very hard on achieving this goal in 2014 and think it would be nice to see how they stand up in a judging situation.
I am terrible at selecting photos for a competition but I really feel that some of these portraits would have a good shot. These are just three that I happen to like

Any thoughts?

1)




2)




3)

The first one is very nice, but might appeal more generally if you warm it up. people like warm portraits.

The second one is a striking portrait, but do we need that splodge of light and space on the left. Crop it out completely and we're left with a brilliant, head on portrait.

The third I would crop out or clone out the small light area bottom left. The crop on the hair line is fine, but the crop under the chin is cutting things very close. Maybe a tad more space there?

thanks John - i will toy with those ideas, athough I dont think i have the originals any more

I think its got to be number three then two, the red hair does it for me, looks vibrant, nice portraits

regards Dave

ty dave

John

I think I am going to stick with the first one. I curse myself for not shooting the second girl differently - ive tried cropping it tighter like you said but it just doesnt do it for me and the size of the file will obviously suffer.

I love the look of the first one now

You're right that it's got to be an image you like and not somebody else's interpretation.

I think the subject would like your revised version of No 1 much better, and hopefully the judges will too. I don't know who the judges are, but if they are not photographers then the criteria they judge by may be very different to ours. In that context, warmer will probably score higher.

Cheers John

if i rember right from others you have posted that there is some a lot better but if they are the 3 you have narrowed it down to it as to be no1

regards stu

My choice would be 3, but without the green to the left which I find a little distracting and doesn't really add anything. There is a nice contrast with the eye colour and hair.

I agree with the second version colouring of the first girl. Have you tried cropping some from the left side, just to make it a bit off center.

Definitely the revised version of no.1. A lovely portrait.

The revised version of #1 for me.
David
PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

No 2, straighten her across the eyes then do a close "square" crop from the bottom right losing all the light stuff on the left.

Brian

Can you demonstrate?

Ive had difficulty editing that photo in that manner and would like to see what you mean