Is she staring at me?

The above photo is a profile picture of my friend on facebook. This photograph caught my attention at first, not because how beautiful it is, because I did not believe it was my friend at first. With all the art decorations on her face, I barely recognized her. Everything about this photo just inspires me and actually makes me think, 'If I were a photographer, makeup artist or hair dresser', I would want my product to look just as professional and pleasing as this. I have always been in love with black and white photographs. I think the first time I realized I loved it so much, was when I bought a poster of the New York Manhattan landscape pre 9/11 at a poster-sale when I attended University. In addition to the standard black and white, the editor also incorporated some faint blue in the top left corner, which in my opinion makes the image just pop out at the audience.
Besides loving the black and white composition of the photo, I also really like how my friend is looking down at the viewer, but at the same time her posture looks like she is facing upward. The way in which they used her hair in the shot is also very interesting to me. It looks like her hair is only shown at the top of the photograph, but if you look closely you can see that there is pieces of hair flowing across her cheeks and chin. The first thing I focused on while looking at the picture was her mouth and then her right eye. Which I think whoever took the photo, wanted the viewer to do. After that I think the audience just absorbs the image as a whole, viewing the artwork across her face, her nose and then finally her hair.