for comments only

my interest lies in learnig from your comments much more than than

in generating anonymous ratings, please

Hi, Steve. Well, nice photo. I think I would have pulled back a bit and got more of her on the left of the photo. You might not have had the chance if you didn't know her.

Steve; I like the shot and the thought behind it. I think if it were my photo, I perhaps would have widened the image a bit and used a bit larger F stop to get fulll length clarity. No matter what anyone says though about your photos, they are yours and they are the art the way you like to see it and capture it. Good work and keep it up.

I think the comment about getting more of her in the shot is right on- perhaps shift viewpoint to the right some.

 

If it's someone you know, straighten the wrinkles out of the bikini bottom. (If it's a stranger, best not to attempt that.)

 

The top is revealing, but the pose tends to de-accentuate her bust, which works against the shot. See: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4737127

The subject, sunlight and skin tones make for a very nice pic but the problem, as others have said is choosing the right angle, perspective and framing. I think this version works better because it avoids the arm-shortening effect of the other. You need to decide how much to include and obviously you can't include more after the photo is taken. With the "telephoto" perspective there is always some foreshortening - you can correct this partially in PS and/or make use of it to emphasise aspects of the subject. For this shot I would suggest both - using a much closer crop, which also avoids the crumpled bikini problem (it looks like she arranged it to maximise her tan!). While doing this you can also move interesting objects near the edge (eg the plant) inwards so they don't get cropped off.

 

I hope you don't mind if I do a quick mod to show what I mean ...

... Like this. I shall delete it in a few days unless you would like it left up for discussion.

 

Best wishes, Jonathan

WOW, thanks to all, this is the best feedback I have received to date. Lots of things to try. I'll be a while digesting it. Then I'll be back with my next effort.

jonathon i like what you did sometime less is more. Your ecommendation to crop out some of this picture certainly made it more interesting

in this case, I agree