Portrait

John,

She is really a pretty girl, but her lack of make-up, expression and relatively pale skin do not bring out any of her beauty.

You have focused well. The composition is not too bad. Her jacket goes very well with the brick background. The background is enough out of focus so that my attention is not drawn away from her face.

The turquoise colored triangle on the background to her right and the red pin on her left lapel is very distracting. Although somewhat subdued in color her scarf also draws my attention away from her face. It has some colors that are not in the rest of the photograph and the vertical lines catch my eye.

She appears to be leaning back on her hands which pushes her left shoulder up. Her blouse is wrinkled as if she is not sitting up straight and is slumped over. She should have better posture.

Besides needing make-up she has circles under her eyes. These should be removed. Be careful of having the bridge of her nose cut into her far eye. He skin tone is a little blotchy and pale. You might want to warm up her skin and even it out. She sure doesn't look like she is very happy with you at the moment.

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.

Nice shot,

Mark