Cristina

Alec,

Christina is a stunningly beautiful girl. She has excellent eyes and wonderful facial bone structure. She has used her make-up very well. The eyeliner under her eyes frames them and makes them stand out. Her skin tone is very good. You have focused well on her eyes. The catch light in her right eye is very good. Her windblown hair looks good. Her expression is very good. She knows how to bring out her sex appeal nicely. She has good highlights in her hair.

I wouldn't lower her right shoulder quite that much. You do have her turned at a nice angle to the camera.

The lighting is pretty good, but you don't want any shadow in her left eye. Her left eye should have a catch light to give it life. I would like to see a little more light in her eyes in general. The whites of her eyes should be whiter. Make sure there isn't red in them. You don't want them to look bloodshot.

Be careful of your depth of field. There are parts of Christina that are not in focus. I don't see a good reason to have any of her out of focus. An out of focus background is very nice and focuses attention on your subject. Parts of your subject out of focus will draw attention away from what is in focus. It is difficult to go wrong with having the entire subject in focus.

Notice the neckline of her scoop neck top. The viewer's eyes will go to the “U” formed by the sides of the neckline and follow it down and out of the photograph because there is nothing there to stop them. You should try to crop below where the “U” of the neckline comes together so that the viewer's eyes have a place to stop. You want to keep the viewer's eyes within the photograph.

Be careful of split profiles. You do not want the tip of her nose to come close to touching the far cheek line. You want to make sure the far eye is either completely showing or not showing at all. You do not want to have the bridge of her nose cut into her far eye.

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 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. This little rule almost always works well. At least, it gives you a very good starting point to position your subject.

If your subject is wearing a necklace that can be made to look straight on her chest, make sure it is straight. Christina's "Love" necklace is crooked. 

The seamless paper background is not a very good color to go with skin tones and it looks like there is a crease on the right side.

Do not let her bra strap show. That is tacky looking.

Your advertising (ATOM Photography) is not part of the photograph. Your name could be properly placed on a mat surrounding the photograph. Any advertising would be better placed on the back of the photograph.

Nice shot,

Mark

Thank you Mark for taking your time to critique my work... truly eye-opening!