Couple pictures of my wife - CC please

These are couple pictures of my wife. I'm still new to taking portraits and want to get better. I'm trying to learn so please CC. Thank you.

1.

the 2nd is way better
the 1st the pose looks a little awkward to me
and the flowers seem out of context to me

The first one is a bit of a mish mash of misplaced body parts. Her shoulders are leading you to the right side of the frame, but her head is turned to the left. The lack of eye contact makes it look less like a portrait than a candid shot. The way she is grasping the flowers adds more distraction than the flowers add anything to the portrait.

The second one is better. But you need to work on your cropping. Never crop through a joint or her hand like you've done here. I understand your desire to use the rule of thirds, but the negative space out there is filled with uninteresting information. It would work better if the space were truly negative (empty) or filled with something interesting that leads your eyes to the subject. In this case it might have been better to just frame it vertically.

HI Sean,

You are a brave Nikon person to post in a Canon forum . First it is helpful to have exif data such as equipment and settings. Not knowing what you used or if you did any post processing, I can say in general that the photos lack punch, you need to use something like lightroom to increase contrast and maybe change vibrance, curves, etc. I am also guessing that the white balance is off and you could fix that easy if her blouse is true white.

For the first photo, her eyes are too far over in the socket, rule of thumb is you want to see some white on both sides of the pupil. Also, it is a little hard for me to be sure but the eyes seem a bit out of focus, not sure if it is camera shake or it is back focused, the earring seems more clear. Her body is facing straight at the camera and that usually doesn't work so well unless you have some special creative idea you are trying out. Body should be at an angle and and then you usually turn the head towards the camera like in the second photo although it can be more interesting if the face is also at a slight angle to the camera.

In the second photo, the brick is just too distracting even though it is out of focus. it would be better to swing to the right and have the brick at a steeper angle. Gonzogolf mentioned the cropping and I would add that you shouldn't have her arm going behind her back. Look for examples of arm and hand placement as it is difficult to optimize their placement in a photo. Good luck, practice and research will lead you to better and better photos, even if you don't use Canon equipment.

The first is slightly out of focus, second looks fab but I'd have got her whole hand in the frame, also the arm behind the back looks a little awkward to me

I'm not professional but I think the first one looks nice. The second one is great too