first "portraits"

These are portrait style, but were very impromptu, as a friend happened along while I was taking pictures of a sunrise last week.

I'd appreciate c&c as I do hope to be able to do more portraiture in the future.

Your friend is not the focal point of these pictures. In the second I would call it beach with a person who happens to be in the shot. Also, the pose is not flattering at all and reminds one of someone sitting and doing their business.

Work at making the person the overwhelming focus of the picture.

The location is really nice. Two things that stick out are that she is taking up a very small part of the frame (zoom in or move in closer) and her track suit doesn't seem to go with the location. The light is very nice too.

yup yup, agree with the above reply.

I agree with the above remarks - more specifically on #2 where there is just an unbelievable amount of headroom above the model (I think you have more headroom above the model than what she is tall!). Even above the tall grass, there is a lot of room.

Rule #1 when shoot portraits is to make sure the person you are taking portraits of is the subject - not the scenery that surrounds them.

Hope that's helpful!

Its all helpful, thank you all so much. I agree, now that it was pointed out, that her position isn't totally flattering. It'll be fun to see who I can talk into modeling for me next. Thank you all for the c&c.