First time portraits. Critique please?

[Logan95]

 

[Designer]

Very good!

Did you take some photos without his backpack?

The watch in #2 commands an inordinate amount of attention. Unless it happens to be a watch advert.

 

[chuasam]

The Michael Kors fashion watch is too dominant in the photos and clashes with his bracelet.
Other than that, well done.

 

[KalitheArtist]

I like them! They're really good shots to start with! I agree about the watch thing and someone wise on this forum told me about color fringing/chromatic aberration. You have a bit of that going on in the first one, especially on the roof. =] Keep practicing!

 

[manaheim]

This is one of those situations where I read others' feedback and feel like I must be completely clueless.

However, to me these need a lot of work. Not that that's a bad thing! You said yourself... first try! Practice makes perfect.

Specifically...

As a whole, they look soft and the subject is underexposed.
The bright sky in the background on the first one kills the shot almost utterly. Need a flash to compensate or a different angle for the shot.
The eyes in the latter two are dead (no, or relatively little, specular highlight).

The pose in the last one seems nice.