Jazzar

This is a slight crop of a pic in my gallery. He's a feral cat that we adopted (along with two others!) I like the picture, but am intersted to know what other people think of it. I wanted to capture his eyes, so changed the rest of the pic to mono. I would welcome some honest comments: is it too cliched, or badly composed? I think I may have over-sharpened it a bit.
Shot with a Tamron 90mm and 2x converter, purely because it happened to be on the camera when I decided I wanted to take the picture.

I don't think its too cliched at all, you've managed to capture an almost human expression, which I love. I also think the crop adds an intimacy to the picture.

I also think converting the picture (excluding eyes) to mono works well. I'm not always a fan of colour-popped photos, but this one is slightly more subtle than most which I think is why it works. As I looked at the picture before reading your text I didn't know at first that you had done it (thought it could have been a grey cat!).

The only think I find a little distracting are the reflections in the eyes, which are largely unavoidable when shooting. They could possibly be PP'd out, but having done this in the past I know sometimes it does make the picture lose 'something'.

Overall, I really like this picture. I am a cat lover, so it will be interesting to hear the opinions of non cat lovers. I just wish my cat would stay still long enough for me to take shots like this!!

I like the picture; the expression on the face is excellent, and I love the tight framing.

However, I am not a fan of selective colour, and for me the picture would have been better in full mono.

That, however, is a purely personal preference.

G

It doesn't look oversharpened to me. The picture is well executed, and a very good portrait.

But then, I'm also a cat lover. I would like the picture in full colour, though.

Thanks for the comments! Often it's difficult to know if you are getting something right without some external input, so it's great to get feedback.

Here's the original colour version. Personally I much prefer the conversion.

No, not cliched. Just a strong, well executed image. Very nicely done and I'm definitely not an animal person!

They are, of course, two different images. I cannot make uo my mind as to which I prefer. But a strong portrait anyhow, colour or b/w.

Jon,

the other option may be to de-saturate the eyes in the popped colour version, so that the eyes blend in more with the mono parts of the image.

That could be a good shout.

I'm viewing it on my desktop today, and the eyes don't look as subtle as they did on my laptop yesterday.

I quite like this idea...thanks ver much I-Berg and Robbie.. Here's the result, does it look better? I quite like it, but I also still like the original.

Jon, I still like the original, but the last edit is probably my personal preference (YMMV of course!).

I like the original more. Somehow the desaturating has changed the expression in the eyes. Sounds daft I know, but that's my impression.