my first photoshoot with a model, any C&C would be great!

Ok this is my first real photoshoot with someone.

Would love to know what you think. None have been edited in photoshop. Any ideas on what I should do to give them a boost in CS3?

Thanks for looking.

They all look Out Of Focus to me, and the white balance is needing some attention..

Please do not rely on a process to improve these.I would get myself connected with the camera and the balances first.fill flash,etc..

Keep shooting, ..there are super great tutorials on here, do a search, improve your photography first, then the small fix'ins come after

I agree with Gail. All are out of focus, all but the 3rd one are underexposed, and the white balance is way off. Composition needs a lot of work too. Sorry to be harsh, but these should be binned and reshot rather than post-processed.

Looking at the EXIF, looks like you had slow shutter speeds which would account for your OOF. You'll need a tripod at that speed. Lighting needs to be improved as they all look underexposed.

But on the other hand the first and the last are the best. The expression looks real, the composition looks interesting. I'm using my laptop so I can't comment about exposure or focus. Not bad for a first try. There is just so much to learn and then remember until it becomes natural, starting with taking off the lens cap. (lol)

Last 2 are the most interesting. All are out of focus.

I really think that for your first go with a model you've odne a good job of capturing a range of expressions and facets of the model's personality. Great work with the artistic side of it. Now- go work on the technical... (like I'm one to talk...)

honestly, when I looked at these yesterday, they didn't do much for me. But coming back to read other comments, because I was struggling what to say, the first one caught my attention this time for some reason. I am really loving the background, for what ever reason. It sort of fits the abstractness of the shot. I think that one and the last one have room to work with. The ones with the red curtain....err... umm... really heavy looking. The have the feel of having been shot in a photo booth. Perhaps thats the look you two were going for... don't know. All the shots have a heavy darkness to them, is that what you were going for? If so, your on the right path. Stylistically, your on the path. If you not... whooops. Not every shot needs to be in needle sharpness - that is a huge issue with the advice given on this forum. Technical perfection is the goal hear rather than expression of emotion. The latter is much harder to pull off, and ofter requires a less then technically perfect image. Only you know what your intent is though. I am not sure any of this helps, hope it did though. Cheers.

The Technical issues mentioned do need to be addressed, but well done for trying on M for all of these. But lets look at the bigger picture. I've only done 2 model shoots myself so I'm aware of the difficulty of managing Composition/exposure/p​ose/expression/light/m​odel-interest all at the same time, its certainly much harder than snapshots at home. Even more so if you paying the model for her time and have some added pressure of time.

They are all dark/underexposed and for the majority that is a problem, however it really appears to work for the last one, maybe a happy accident. The poses have some variety which is good, but the facial expression appears to be the same in all the shots, this could be a problem with your direction, but it works for the last one. So of the bunch you presented I'd keep the last one (but fix the white balance).

Now onto the technical stuff and some general advice. Even with a really fast piece of glass (appears you used the 50mm 1.8?) you will need a flash. Both my shoots I took the 50mm 1.8 and my sigma 24-70 f/2.8 and ended up using the 24-70. Indoors/Outdoors use the flash. I almost never used f/2.8 as unless the pose is straight on you will have something out of focus at f/2.8. You can try fight physics all you want, but you probably need minimum for f/4 - f/5.6 especially if you every have both shoulders visible at any angle to the camera. With a flash aimed at a white ceiling in a normal sized room you can use any f-stop you want and pretty much have natural looking results. If you want to shoot models/fashion you need to think of f-stops in terms of DOF, and not in terms of allowing you to get a shot without using flash.

Here is an example from my last shoot, it was fairly dark outside and the mix of lights temperatures in the room where a pain and not that great anyway. This is one of the few taken at f/2.8 it was straight on and I wanted the focus to be on her face and not further down her torso . It needed ISO640 to get a 1/40 speed at 34mm, I also sat in a chair and used a monopod. The flash bouncing of the ceiling above me, made sure it was in frozen in focus and had some pop to it, so by changing the shutter all I was really adjusting was the background exposure. I could have gone to 1/200 and had the background darker and the model lit perfectly.

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I have to agree. While this stuff isn't easy, it doesn't have to be all that hard, either.

VERY simple "outdoor studio"
There's a step-by-step WB & exposure workflow in post #15.

Angeline outdoors

Karlos...... nice post. Good advice.

Looking back at the pictures, the last one reminds me of Morgan Webb.

A lot of good advice given! In the end... shoot, analyze, learn, adjust, and repeat! We all have to start somewhere.

I recall a guy trying to take a picture of a slide projection... with his flash on.

It wasn't me!

Honest!

Composition looks marginally good. All are OOF, white balance is way off.
But hell, this may be your first try. Keep at it, learn your camera well, and most of all, keep working at it.