Instead of her left boob going in to the pillow, us that pillow to push it to the center and enhance her cleavage.
If you mean that the pillow should be inbetween her boob and the edge of the couch rather than in front of it, I think that it is already mostly in that position (judging by how much of it is covered) and is indeed helping to push her chest inward; though the pillow could perhaps be a bit straighter so as to not "look" like it's a bit in front of her. If you mean that the pillow should be pushing her boon inward in a manner beyond simply having it be inbetween her chest and what she's leaning against, then I'm not sure how I would do that.
Other than that, everything you said sounds very helpful and is much appreciated.
Best of luck and interested to see more from results of your work with this model.
This model and I get along very well, and are hoping to work together a lot more once people can go outside again; so hopefully you'll get to see that eventually.
In addition to Joe's remarks, for me, the pose is not at all natural, nor is the eye position natural at all...she is stiff and more like a barbie doll than a person.
I'll start by taking these remaks at face value; I think there's something you might be noticing unconsciously, which I'll get to in a minute. For me, I notice her expression first (which her right hand compliments), her cleavage second; and then everything else kind of fades into the background, as a general concept of "sprawled sexily on the couch" with the details being unimportant. If I deliberately turn off my instinctive reaction and actually THINK about the image, I guess I can see why you might call the pose unnatural; as I can see how Joe's suggestions would imporove the pose, and thus I can see how all of those flaws add up to something less than natural.
For the eyes, I have to say that I really don't see that. For me, it looks like she's giving a direct, sultery look to the camera. To me her expression looks confident and sexy, in such a way that those two things compliment eachother. Can you explain more what you see wrong with the eyes?
That said, when you say you think she looks like a barbie doll, are you sure that that's not because of the texture of her face, rather than her eyes or the pose? As I said I smoothed out blemishes on her face, and one of my concerns was that it makes the skin of her face look "fake."
Whatever else you do with the pose, lose the high heels. Nobody, but nobody wears high heels on a velvet couch.
Nobody actually wears business attire with an open blazer and no shirt either (or likely wears a blazer with no shirt period); this pose and outfit are rather stylized. I for one feel like the presence of high heels makes the outfit sexier even if they're not being used the way they'd realistically be used; and even if you disagree on that point, I definitely feel like having no shoes at all would detract from the ensemble.
I suppose I could have had the feet out of frame, had the heels be off but still visible in the photo (sitting on the couch or on the floor), or had her wear professional but heel-less shoes for the shots on the couch. For that last, it seems like a lot of trouble to ask the model to bring an extra pair of shoes just for that... and for the other two, in short I'm not so sure that that would be an improvement, all things considered.
Can I get some more opinions on this? Do others agree that wearing heels on a couch is such a big problem (again, considering that the pose is by nature stylized, pinup-y and somewhat unrealistic)? What do others think of those three solutions I listed? Which would be better than the way I did it, and which would be worse?
