The big trick in photography is to know when to break the rules. When the human eye looks at an image it will immediately be drawn to the brightest portion. Then it will explore the image and finally return to the brightest area. That is why, typically, the subject of an image will be the brightest area in the image. This is a fantastic rule and aides in composting beautiful pictures. Like all rules though, when you can successfully break it, you will have a very intriguing photo. The subjects eyes in this photo are the focal points but, they are shrouded in shadow. Why does it work here? Is it because the shadow pattern is broken up and high contrast. Is it a strong rim light that creates a bold silhouette? Maybe the eyes are just close enough to brightest area. I believe all of these aspects make it work in this instance. This is a great exercise, try and shoot an image with a focus point hiding in the darker tones of the photograph. It’s not as easy as you may think.