Input wanted: last of this series

I know the light on the bottom of the foot is distracting but could you give some insight on what I could do to make this image better.

A looser crop.

Christopher Steven b wrote in post #17242820
A looser crop.

Thanks for the kind comment. Could you offer a little more on where to crop? Add more room all the way around or at bottom, top or sides?

You don't want her feet extended towards the camera because that increases their relative size. They look much larger than her head in this position. You also don't want your subject sitting next to a wall when you're shooting with a flash on camera in portrait orientation. You will always get that hard shadow on your subject's left side.

You should place her as far from the wall as possible and have her feet stretched out to one side or tucked up under her. Moving her away from the wall will soften the shadow and if you could get the flash off camera and/or add a modifier to diffuse the flash, it would soften the shadow even more or possibly remove it altogether. Bouncing the flash off of a white ceiling or wall would also soften the shadow.

Also you are shooting up under her chin. Thats almost never flattering. The lack of eye contact stands out. Your subject doesnt have to look at the camera but its helpful if they are looking at something in the frame so you dont get the off in space look. That hard side shadow just destroys this shot.

bob_r wrote in post #17242946
You don't want her feet extended towards the camera because that increases their relative size.

That's a good general rule, but in this case I disagree. The boots are shown so large that they must have been featured deliberately. To put it differently, please tell me it was intentional, because otherwise it was a big mistake! Maybe the young lady wanted a Western theme, who knows?

Facial expression. I don't know what happened there, but it doesn't look genuine. She seems to be trying to look angelic. She doesn't connect with the viewer.

The tilt of the boards on the wall is distracting. I prefer level lines in this kind of background.

She is also a little hot on her cheeks and the harsh shadow is a bit much. If you took the same shot from the left a bit more and above it would work better I think.

This is not the sort of photography I know much about, but I do think that shadow is just too harsh, and that reminded of this video I watched a couple of months ago (or part of it, it's long). This guy is absolutely fantastic, he talks quite a bit about lighting, you might get some portrait ideas from it. It's a B & H video, those are quite good.

OhLook wrote in post #17243058
That's a good general rule, but in this case I disagree. The boots are shown so large that they must have been featured deliberately. To put it differently, please tell me it was intentional, because otherwise it was a big mistake! Maybe the young lady wanted a Western theme, who knows?

The boots wouldn't need to be twice the size of her head to imply a Western theme. This looks like the OP was trying to take a portrait of a pretty young lady and there would be no reason to introduce distortion in that situation. I think it was just a natural mistake due to inexperience.

Thanks folks....now I got to figure out hold the remember all this the next time.

I agree with most of the comments so far.

I have to agree with bob_r, if the boots are the target there are better ways to show them.

As to the flash - try a simple reflector on the off side (if you can't get the flash off the camera).
And if having her lean directly against the wall is a must I would really work at getting the flash off camera. If moving the flash isn't an option I would try shooting landscape mode and cropping to portrait. That would put the flash up and push shadows directly behind her.

Getting creative with bounced flash would also help soften the light and shadows.