First Time Photoshoot C&C please

Last Saturday I joined my friend who had a planned photoshoot with other photographer. The model was a known person to them. Posting one of the photos I clicked requesting C&C please

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The lighting is way off! This causes a lack of crispness in the photo. Even with back lighting the model needs correct lighting. Beautiful model by the way, and the photo is by no means a disaster and could be quickly adjusted in Photoshop.

This looks underexposed, soft, the model's expression I don't like, I don't like that she's holding onto a phone.

Your background muddles things as there is too much of the sky which is totally blown out. You need to either eliminate that from your background, get all of the background or nearly all of it to be the darker trees and such, or you need to meter for the sky and add a reflector or fill flash to add light to your model.

The best thing about this photo is you have some wonderful rim light on the hair, but you need to work with that to bring the rest of the photo along.

Thanks guys, I'll try to improvise the next time. When I took this picture I found it underexposed as well however I tried to get it to look better I guess I fell short somewhere.

Bringing up the histogram on my display has helped me tremendously. Looked at the histo of your pic and you can see the middle range is very flat. You can make settings on the fly based on that histrogram and walk home with an image that will need much less post processing. I played with the levels a little in PS and already the pic looks better. You want to make sure you DONT have to adjust the levels PP too much which is why shooting for a better overall histo will help you in the field.

Thanks for reminding that's a critical thing to look at, since this was my first I didn't pay too much attention & was just clicking away trying to understand something new. If I get a chance to do one again I'll definitely pay more attention & like you said walk away with a better pic to do less PP on

Now that I understand what the histogram tells me about the shot, I dont even know how I managed without one. I am new at this too and even after only a few months of shooting and TONS of reading, it is a great tool that you have at your disposal if you take advantage of it! And its FREE!

I know you posted this in Feb just wanted to do a little PP on it! Would it be ok to post it?

the model doesn't look impressed...it would be great if you had a photograph of her in the mood...

@richcon I wouldn't mind you doing PP & posting it, along with that please do share what you have done in the PP

@Mr.Kenmuir this was an impromptu one, the "in mood" ones I can't post since that was a photoshoot of some other photog & I just tagged along with my friend & shot this.