Untitled

very beautiful work...congrats

    Perfect portrait

Andrew,

Nathalie is a very pretty girl. You have focused well on her eyes. She has good eye contact with the camera (viewer). Her make-up looks very good. The eyeliner under her eyes frames her eyes well and helps to make them stand out. Her skin tone looks good. The background is nicely neutral and Nathalie is well separated from it. 

Her expression looks a bit blah to me. There is no real feeling in it. She isn't communicating to me. I see her, but I don't feel her presence. Her lights may be on, but I'm not sure if she's home.

Do not pose your subject straight on to the camera. This is not a very feminine pose. Showing your subject’s widest areas (shoulder to shoulder or hip to hip) makes those areas appear wide. Your subject will appear thinner and more feminine, graceful and elegant if turned at an angle to the camera. The lines you see from an angle have more apparent motion, interest and grace. You usually do not want to have your subject turned 90 degrees to the camera. This can make the head look unsupported. It usually looks best to angle your subject somewhere around 45 degrees.

Nathalie's posture just doesn't look too good. Have her sit up straight with her shoulders back and her chest out. Do not have her slump her shoulders. 

There are some reflections on her glasses, but they aren't over her eyes. That would be very bad. You might be able to lessen the reflections by having her tilt her down a little. This sometimes will work. As long as they are not over her eyes, or too noticeable, I wouldn't be too concerned.

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. She is a vertical subject. I would strongly consider using a vertical format rather than a horizontal format.

If you move her farther from the background you should be able to get rid of her shadow on the background.

You have used your camera's flash as your main light. This will give you those tiny pointy looking little catch lights in the middle of her eyes. The ideal position for catch lights is close to the 10 or 2 o'clock position on her irises. To achieve this your main light should be above, in front and to the side of your subject. The camera’s flash will also give you very flat lighting. Judicious use of shadows can make your photograph much more interesting and create a nice illusion of depth within your photograph.

I would lighten the whites of her eyes so that they are nice and white on both sides of her irises. You might want to adjust the contrast and brightness to see if you can get a little more detail in her blouse.

Nice shot,

Mark

Nice use of white bg., great expression, Andrew, eyes_catching!      Best regards

An attractive composition with very high quality of color tonality.

Mark,

Thanks a lot for your detailed comments. You are correct with all of them. I was just testing my new Sony flash. I took some pictures with flash reflected form the ceiling and using a "flash soft box"
This picture is with flash only. I found out that the plastic soft box changed the color so significantly that it was more or less useless. Nathalie liked this picture so I posted it.
 
Regards,
 
Andrew