Critique my first shots with my friend

Hey guys, I went out for about a half hour with a friend. She just said she wanted a new profile picture and I wanted to test out my new t3i and 50mm combo. I was hoping to get about 5 or 6 great images, and this is what I came up with. She was hard to photograph because I had never tried telling someone how to pose and I just told her to act natural...there wasn't a lot of room for me to stand because we were on some switch backs over the lake lol.

Anyway, I did some editing in photoshop, but this was a few weeks back (The whole shoot was) and I had just starting working with photoshop. I cleaned up her zits, put in some color via the vibrance setting, changed brightness and away I went :P. I know there's some consistency issues with my lighting and such but what would you guys tell me? Suggestions on how to tell someone to stand, lighting just using the sun options. Where should I place myself leme know what you guys think You can't hurt my feelings unless you just flat out tell me I suck lol

You should use a flash, even the pop up, with the exposure compensation set down about one full stop. That will fill the shadows on her face and give you a catch light that will make her eyes spark.

Thanks! You can see in #2 that it was the only shot I could even see her eyes. I have recently been using the dodge tool/brush tool to bring back eye whites and eye colors, in these I was foolishly selecting both the eyes and just raising the vibrance and saturation lol

Go back when the sun is down a bit more. Shadows are harsh.

But if you have to shoot in these conditions, position subject between you and the sun

If you want a more relaxed look to your subject, tell them to relax and that you're adjusting some settings on your camera. Take some pictures, but let them know they are just adjustment settings. I've got a lot of good keepers deceiving people this way, because they tend to actually become more relaxed. Hahaha

#2 is a bit soft

As someone else said, head back 30-60 mins before sun down and do it all over.

Thanks for that information! I was planning on shoot some photos of my friend in the woods in a few weeks and wasn't sure when the best time of day was. This seems like it should work in that instance too.

#2 was shot at 1/100th, ISO 100 and 1.75 (1.8). I don't know why I got any blur in the image in her hair, but perhaps I missed focus :P I tried salvaging theimage because I liked it.

The colors on these before I edited were just awful. extremely pale colors all over her body and very bright....I've shot in this lighting before with no issues, how would I fix this? If you need one of my RAW shots let me know. they are pretty ugly in color

#2 is soft because you're using the 50mm 1.8 prime. At 1.8 I'd say I get 5 out of 10 tack sharp images. It's kind of flaky like that. 2.8 to 4 and you're tack sharp rate goes way up.

Yeh it was really quick when I was shooting. I was walking too so perhaps I just missed :P I really liked the shot so I saved it