Oh! =lifemachine. Ha, just met 'em yesterday -- small world. That bit of serendipitous chance aside, the photograph!

Here's what the I see - a sort of meshing of the natural world and the human world as the flesh and face is part of the tree and moss and greenery. The blurred green twig on the right-most side seems almost like a green tattoo (and that's what I thought it was on the small thumb!). This kind of great confusion of what's "human" and what's separate and nature creates a great feel here. One can't see the lips so the expression isn't easy to define. There are no smile wrinkles around the visible eye, but the eye is narrowed. I can't decide if the model is smiling very slightly (a sort of Mona Lisa smile) or simply staring through hooded eyes (because of tiredness or bright light). That also adds to that ambiguity that I mentioned earlier. The viewer isn't certain whether life-as-a-garden is a good and happy thing, or neutral, or negative.

An argument can be made for it being a negative, as some of the image is slightly grotesque -- the protruding green-moss instead of the eye, for example, is somewhat disturbing (and reminded me a lot of how cyborgs are depicted in movies). This is something to consider if the intention was for there to be an elegant transition from flesh to nature. That moss sticks out, rather than merges. A smaller size might have seemed more natural, though, the current effect isn't necessarily bad - just not holistic. (Just out of curiosity, did you take this with the model lying down and then flip it?) All depends on what overall impression you were going for with this.

Now more technical things. I did a brief scan of the comments on the first page, and I noticed quite a few people saying they like the focus and its sharpness. I'm going to go against the flow and say that the focus didn't work for me. Barring the softness of the bottom right where the leaves seem part of the cheek, the shot felt out-of-focus for me and after the first look, my eyes kept trying to look at the eye and the hair and the details. They were softened and made me want to clean my glasses.

I don't know about most people, but in a close up portrait shot, the eyes/eye may not be the first thing I look at, but my gaze travels to it inevitably. Here, the softness of the eye pushes me away and hurts my overall impression. I realize that a full sharpen filter won't do any good, but perhaps a sharpen brush on the eye and a few other focus points might make the image more compelling? I sincerely feel that it would add to the photograph.

Speaking of the eye, have you played around with the idea of strengthening the color of the eye. Obviously anything extreme will make the natural-ness feel of the image seem contrived, so I'm not suggesting the model's eyes be poison green. However, a slight tinge of color might add a holistic sense of the human being an integral part of nature rather than just slowly being consumed by it (a possible interpretation). All depends on intended direction, really.

My last critique/suggestion would be about the border. I'd remove it. I found that borders tend to strengthen nature shots and shots with lines and geometry. However, with portrait shots, they often stifle. Here, the border is a distraction, in my opinion, and without it, the image has more openness and seems more genuine. I'd remove it.

So yes, a few thoughts. Thank you for sharing, for your critique, and good luck with your art!