Is this a portrait? Should it have placed 3rd?

[webestang64]

you wanna know why it placed? so it would be controversial and make the rounds around the internet and again, forgotten about by anyone outside that circle.

ding ding ding.....what do we have for him Johnny?

 

[VidThreeNorth]

I think I agree with the "Honorable Mention".

Keep in mind that the judges did not know what they were looking at. Read the quote again. All they had was the title. It was not voted for "because it was an android". It got its 3rd place votes legitimately.

Any criticism of technique really just boil down taste. You might not like it, but the judges accepted it as a part of the composition.

It looks like a stylized image (possibly with heavy but subtle makeup) perhaps with deliberate removal of detail, and yes, I have seen photographs with such "stylistic" touches before.

So that leaves the face and the expression on the face. Here, I felt the expression on the face was unusual. Portraits sometimes show something of how people present themselves, which is to say how the person wants people to see them, and sometimes what the photographer wants people to see. I have never seen this particular facial expression in a portrait before. There is an alertness. Is there confidence? This is what I think the judges voted for.

As for whether it gets a prize. Well, what I said at the top. . . .