two portraits of g/f

Here are two shots I took of my girlfriend, please critique, I'm a beginner at best with portraits.

Here's the EXIF data used an A75.

1st - 1/50s f/3.5 at 9.4mm, no flash

2nd - 1/80s f/3.5 at 9.4mm, no flash

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The first is interesting but the second one is too dark. If you want do a silhouette it should be completely black. The eyes are the window to the soul so if you have any light on someone I would say most folks will want to see the eyes.

Yeah, your right, also, do you think that I'm perhaps to close to her face and that I should've been standing back a bit on the 2nd pic?

I tried to brighten it up a bit in PS:

Also, maybe just my opinon now, but upon viewing it some more it almost seems as if the bright sun from my window is drawing more of my attention than her face is.

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Your GF is cuuute! Take more pics!!

My recommendation: watch your backgrounds! She's pretty and relaxed, so your model is awesome! The poses/expressions are very good, but the background's slightly crowded and the window is blown out/distracting.

Take her outside under a tree and use fill flash. Keep on shootin!

Don't know if you have a flash but if so this would be a good use for it. Your problem is the bright light in the window which is what the camera is trying to expose. It's a classic back lit problem.

Oh, btw - she is a very pretty girl.

The first one would be alot better if the framed picture on the wall was out of the picture. I like the lighting in it though. If the shadow area on her left side of her face is a lil dark for your taste, use a piece of foam board or something white and hold it just outside the picture to bounce back some of the light as a natural fill light. And you're right on the second one, the window is too bright and detracts from the subject. You're probably not going to be able to do much with this picture because JPEG artifacts will be real bad due to detail loss in under exposure. Keep on trying though, practice makes better and you're on the right track.

Lucky man, She's a pretty girl

The first one is interesting. I like the direction of the light, but I think maybe you could have exposed it a little more. The second one is severely backlit. Your camera exposed for the window behind her(and still blew it out) and left her in the shadows. What would have been good here is a fast shutter to expose the window properly, and fill flash with fast shutter sync to expose her properly.

I think they both could have used a little fill flash.
On the first one you could have gotten by with a little something to reflect some light back into her face, but the way the second one is backlit a flash is a must.
Not bad for a first go though.
Keep at it and you'll get there.

Thanks guys, and yes I am quite lucky, she's a wonderful girl.

You guys stress the need for fill flash, man if only I knew what that were when I took these

When I had my A75 a year ago all I knew how to do was turn that little knob and use all those "handy" little preset modes.

I get my A610 here this week (never purchased another camera since my A75 was stolen last year) so I'll try and get a better portrait up of her in the coming month and try and put forth what I've learned in this thread.

You guys are great, much thanks!