TC2

Nice photo of a nice smile. A nice enough smile to melt a cold wintry heart.

Jim

Tom,

She is a beautiful girl with an infectious smile. The background is nicely out of focus. She is separated well from the background. The color saturation and the contrast is good. Her make-up looks very good.

I'm not sure her eyes are in as good focus as they should be. Her skin tone has a little red in it. There appears to be something wrong with her catch lights. Did you insert them using Photoshop? I think you had a problem retouching her eyes. There is a problem with the whites, also.

Her lighting is quite flat. Judicious use of shadows can add interest and create an illusion of depth within your photograph.

She has a very pretty sweater and hat, but this is a portrait. Avoid bright colors and bold patterns in clothing. In a portrait the subject’s face is what is most important and nothing should draw the viewer’s attention away from the face.

Your subject should have more room in front of her than behind. This allows her to be facing into the picture, not out of it. You may not want quite this much room. You want to compositionally balance the left and right sides of the photograph. The compositional "rule" for this suggests that you position the tip of the subject's nose in the vertical center of the photograph. I would move her to her left or crop some off the right side of the photograph.

If you would crop some off the right side you could get rid of the white and red thing in the background that is drawing the viewer's attention away from your subject. Vertical subjects are often photographed in a vertical format. There really isn't anything in the background that tells anything about your subject that wouldn't be seen if you shot her vertically.

Nice shot,

Mark