At the gallery - CC welcome, even looks

[The_Traveler]

The photo does not feel balanced, the painting is cut out too much as part of the eye is cut off, there is too much visible noise for my tastes, the image also looks very dark and looks like it was taken with a cell phone. I would have stood back a lot and had her on the right side and the painting on the left and balanced the photo out that way.

Since this was a grab shot, there was not the option to have her move so I could take the shot.

The image is very dark, purposefully.

The 'real woman's face is less distinct than the photograph but they share a tonality and an obscurity, the photograph because it in an art object and partially hidden, the woman because she is so deep in the dark. But the lines of the face are similar and the expression. The gold watch, necklace and earrings provide the only points to actually focus on and they are the things that give a hint which figure we should know is in this reality.

I excluded what the woman was looking at because I didn't want the viewer to focus on her interaction with that object but to look first at the photograph and then have to look harder for the real person.

You are perfectly free to not like the noise, however the noise is inherent in the situation that the picture was taken in - a dark gallery and a small Oly EP3 camera.

Not every picture has to be easy to see or technically perfect to be enjoyable.