My first post. Went out to try new lens and I saw someone else had a better subject than I did.

Since I've been lurking here I am humbled by the great work I see.

Comments please on this image. Thanks.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/opftnMgpGc5l8PoNqtAWbw?feat=directlink

Welcome to FM and thanks for posting this. While I like the idea there are a couple of problems that I see with this photo.

1) The young couple are too small and it's hard to make out the details of the woman's face.

2) Very distracting background. I noticed right away how the bench appears to be sprouting out of her back.

Some suggestions to work on the future:

1) When taking people photos make the people as large as possible in the frame.

2) If there are two people interacting, as in this shot, determine who is the main subject and get that person's eyes in focus.

3) Be mindful of the background. Many an otherwise good photo has be ruined by a messy background. Generally the rule for shooting people is that you want the background to be blurred. Shooting with your lens wide open really helps. Adding a vignette in Photoshop can also sometimes help.

4) The main exception to the above rules is for environmental portraits, where the background becomes the subject and sometimes the people become secondary or tertiary.

For some really fantastic candid people shots check out the People forum here.

Hope this helps. Keep shooting and sharing!

-- Mark

Thanks for your input.

Maybe I could blur out the background in layers in PS.

Not much I can do on composition now.

I will also look through people forum.

Thanks.