Please please please advise...I'm new and need C&C

ANY C&C at all is appreciated

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#1 is not a bad shot if it's what you were trying to get. The light (sun) was behind her, which puts her face in shadow. Her eyes are in focus. The exposure on her eyes is good. That's important. You compensated for the shadow. Of course, that blew out the highlights in her hair, which was receiving some of that sunlight. I believe the sunlight was also affecting your white balance, which made her face too blue from the shade or skylight.

Solutions? Pick one: (1) Use fill flash. (2) Pick a different time of day when the light is not harsh. (3) shoot in the shade.

#2 is a low light shot. It's blurry because of camera shake. You didn't keep the exif data in the file, so I can't tell what they shutter speed was. But I'll guess it was 1/15 sec or less. A general rule is that your shutter speed should be at least the reciprocal of the lens focal length. If you were using a 70mm lens, your shutter speed should have been 1/70 sec. If a 1.6 crop camera, 1/125.

Thanks Joe, God Damn it's hard to get C & C around here lol, the 2nd shot was on a ferry that was going at a bit of speed and there wasn't anything to rest my camera on... I'm only learning so it's kind of trial and error atthis stage. I really appreciate ur comments

Here's a clue, if you ever get to the stage when you're not trying new things and making errors, then you're stagnating. Trial and error is what we all do. The key point is assessing why the errors happen so we can anticipate them the next time.

Its nice you got the Sydney Opera House in the background of #2. Although blurred it is a recognizable icon by most folks.

Light is the most important thing to watch when shooting. It has to be used to our advantage. It can enhance or distract from an image. Even using a flash, existing ambient light can be critical to getting a quality image that is properly exposed. As joedlh mentions shooting in the shade often relieves many exposure problems. However, when you take unplanned pictures it becomes more important to really think about the background and existing light. Position yourself accordingly and if possible take several images of the subject to increase the odds of success.

1. The left side of her face is blown out on account of the lighting - even adjusting the shadows/highlights you can't recover those pixels. Look for more even lighting when doing portraits.

2. Like others have said, OOF/camera shake. Keep trying!

Jen D.

The first one would be great with those highlights toned down some. I like the composition though.
The second has an exposure of 1.3s. That's way too long for handheld and too long for a portrait because nobody holds a pose that still. Try upping iso even more and underexposing it (so that the shutter speed is faster) then increase the exposure in pp.
I'd love the second with more sharpness, cool shot!