My first attempt t photographing people

canderson

My sweetheart was kind of coerced into this at Grafield Park in Indianapolis, IN:

Scott_Quier

Welcome to DGrin. I love it here and I hope you do as well!

Please accept the following in the spirit in which it is intended - to help.

All three have focusing issues. It appears you used the center focus point while your subject (your sweetheart) was not covered by that focus point. So, in the first one, you have the plant and post in focus. In the second, it's the tree limb above her right hand, and in the last I'm not quite sure what is in focus, maybe the concrete objects in the shade of the large conifer tree?

Was it your intent to make your lady a part of a larger image or was she intended to be the focus of the image. If the latter, then maybe she should be a larger part of the image. In your images, she is only about 25% of the image.

What is well done is that you have not centered your lady in the photographs.

ShepsMom

I like composition on 1st and 2nd shots. In the first one. right side of her face has more shadow then her left side. I agree with Scott on focusing. Keep trying and getting advice from the nice guys around here. I can't never do people photography, i'm just reading and observing, may be some day

mmroden

My own personal preference when it comes to people shots is to avoid quartering the frame. For instance, I think your second one could be greatly improved by cropping down just to her. I like her pose in that one, and the raised hand would be the upper left part of the newly cropped image.

This cropping, though, is more of a stylistic factor than a technical one. I think that getting the focus down is an important technical factor, and one that will lift your photos to the next level. The cropping idea is more artistic than that, and so you are free to completely ignore it if it doesn't match your style