Richard, what you said about making realistic photographs is what i was talking to kemal about last week.
we were outside and i said, "Look at that sky, honey! the highlights are blown!!!" :) LOL!

to shoot realistically exactly what i was seeing, my highlights would be blown i reckon. if that's what i want to do and i like how the image looks, then that's fine with me.

i like your image, Richard, and i think the highlights look just fine.

i've been studying Ansel Adams' images a lot these days. i spent $26 on a weekly calendar...each week has a print. i got sick of looking at his images on the web. Like Charles said, with different monitors and settings, the image will look different. i wanted to see his images in print.

anyway, kemal and i were studying them and some of his images look overexposed to us. But when you look at the image in its entirety, there's such an incredible balance to to it! and the contrast between the darks and brights make for such a visually stunning image.

have you seen Adams' image "Oak Tree, Snowstorm, El Capitan Medadow, Yosemite National Park, California, 1948" Also, Adams' "Salt Flats, near Wendover, Utah" (1941) looks like the salt flats are blown. are they really blown? hell...i dunno. i think they are. looks pretty damn bright. Does it bother me? No way! when i look at the image as a whole it looks magnificent!

i think i can get a better understanding if i don't have to worry if my monitor is callibrated right. i believe my monitor is callibrated right, but who knows. looking at the print takes away that factor of "does it look blown out because of my monitor."

sorry for rambling about Adams, but when you talk about highlights, his images are ones i look at and study.
anyway, sometimes i think blown out highlights can be a major distraction. other times, a few hot spots don't bother me. i guess it depends on the image and how hot those hot spots are.

i have a few images where i was trying to take a realistic image and the lighting was extremely harsh and i was trying to show that in my image. is the image visually appealing? dunno. some i like; some i don't.

sorry if my thoughts seem incoherent. i'm exhausted. i've had my coffee an hour ago but i still feel half asleep. i have to go to work in 10 min. & i still feel have asleep. what's wrong with me?

i like the picture Andreas, but if it was mine, i would see if i could work on it a bit. brighten the shadows to bring in more of those details. dunno if you can recover some of the details in his ear.

anyway, all this is just my silly 2 cents worth. :)