Untitled

Comments appreciated please...

Unfortunately, this has the look of a snapshot -- there's flash glare on the subject's skin, the cropping feels a little off (you've snipped the edge of the hat, and the bottom edge just doesn't hold together for me), and the background is very dull.

 

I can see from your other photos that you're starting out (at least, this is what I gather from the "Beginner's Photos" presentation). For what it's worth, I find portraits *very* hard -- posed photos almost never look good with amateur models because they are too conscious of the camera.

 

I would strongly encourage you to look through the portrait tutorial on photo.net and also to look at the high-rated ones in the Gallery section. You'll see that a lot of them do things utterly differently from you -- a good portrait doesn't just have to be chest-to-top-of-head and some of the best ones, I think, include a carefully-chosen backdrop that emphasises features in the model. Alternately, with children I'd guess that candids might produce better results since they won't ham it up as much and look unnatural in the final product.

 

Hope this helps -- most of us here (at least, know that I do) have this type of photo hidden away somewhere in the back of a closet. Frankly, my portraits still aren't that much advanced on this, so hopefully you'll take the ratings as a guide to improvement and not a complete turn-off from photography altogether.

The lady in the background is aa distraction from the pretty girl. The strobe seems a littl overpowering for her also, creating too much shine on her face

Alex.. The subject is beautiful. I would recommend a tighter crop and maybe some tone changes. See attached...

Ryan's feedback and suggested crop are great -- he's excluded the bland areas of the full photograph and the focus is now really the model and her expression. This makes for a much stronger photograph.