This is a photo that I took for a photography contest on DPChallenge.com. The theme was Color Studio Portrait, and I couldn't think of a more unique way of taking a colorful portrait than to paint somebody. And of course, that somebody had to be my wife, Laura.

It took us several hours to put the paint on her (multiple layers - trial, error, redo, etc), and when it came the time to take photos, I took a few hundred shots and couldn't get one that was anywhere close to what I had envisioned. Needless to say that since the paint was acrylic, Laura couldn't open her eyes, talk, drink, or do anything for four hours. We eventually gave up and decided it wasn't all that great of an idea anymore, so Laura went to wash the paint off, and I set up two flashes in the bathroom, just in case... (one of them had a orange filter on, hence the golden reflection)

Once she started taking the paint off, I realized this was the shot I was waiting for all this time. She looked at me, I took a few shots, and that was it.

You can see the original version of the makeup here. The original version of the posted photo can be viewed here. As you can see, I cropped it a little and adjusted the contrast, but since the photo contest had very strict editing guidelines, that's about all I did to the photo.

I know it looks a bit freaky... but I'd still like to know what you think ;)

Titus