New at this - opinions please...

[LoriH]

Just bought myself a digital rebel XT and loving it! I'd love opinions from you pros out there.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b4...H/IMG_0016.jpg

[Hards80]

Lori,

good first shot.. i can tell you put some thought into the positioning and the lighting on this one, which is great...

a few things to improve..

1) watch your backround, you blurred it just fine, but the leaves with the bright sky interspersed is a bit distracting, especially to the right hand side of the frame.. it looks like the leaves provide a better canopy towards the left hand side, i would have shot it towards the part with least amount of light coming through, to keep it an even green background...

2)watch cropping off body parts, the way you cropped off part of the elbow so it goes out and then back into the frame is awkward.. either leave it all or cut it all.. also, i wouldn't have cropped up quite so high, i would have left a little more of the shoulders showing..

3)fill flash would have been helpful to help lighten the face a bit and add some catchlights to the eyes.. set your flash exposure comp (FEC) to -1 1/3

others feel free to add in a few things i missed here..

ok, that is a good start for you to work on.. work on these things and see what you come up with and lets see some more pictures!!

thanks for sharing, and look forward to many more to come..

best regards- dustin