I do wonder if choosing a background that contrasted more might have made the model stand out a little more and though I really like the way her dark hair frames her face and dark makeup makes here eyes pop the similar tones between the dress, her skin and the background may be worth experimenting with.
Thinking about colors in retrospect, I guess I could have shot this outfit against a background of leaves, in the area I did the Red Riding Hood set in. I think that's the only way I could have gotten a more contrasting background in this location.
For tweaking it, I doubt I could alter her skin tone to contrast with the background without doing more harm than good by making it look unnatural (do you disagree?). I could try tinting the background; but I'd be tinting it green, which offhand seems like it wouldn't look good. What did you have in mind?
Seems to me like the highlights on her skin are a touch hot in the second, so there may be a little difference in your workflow which may be something to think about if you are producing some sets.
I increased the contrast by 20 and the exposure by 30 in the first, and by 30 and 50 respectively in the second. (Other adjustments were the same between them.) Contrast seems like the culprit for the highlights looking "hot," so I reduced that down to 20, but I also took the exposure down to 40 since I was already thinking this image was a bit bright. I altered the saturation by the same about, but didn't alter the shadow this time as I thought that also made it look a bit too "hot." Is this better?
Being a hobbyist doesn't give you much latitude for critiques so I will do so as if you are trying to make a buck or two.
You are the one who said that your critique would have been different if I'd said I was a hobbyist up front, so you're starting to sound a bit contrary to me.
I don't see either image as anything but contrived. Go online and look at the thousands of modeling shots and find those that look the most natural and copy the ideas (I think Etsy has a ton of them). These are boudoir shots outside the bedroom against a block wall. If your intent is to show this girls ample bust, then do a boudoir shot and get right to the point.
We did five different outfits in this session, and while all of them flattered her bust in one manner or another, I'd definitely say that this was the most risque; to which, the point of this set was basically to take advantage of the fact that she had a dress with a long zipper. One of the ideas we discussed for this shoot was a racer costume (
example); and if we'd been going to do that, I might not have bothered with this dress, as I agree this is a bit contrived by comparison. However she felt that such an outfit would have been too hot for the time of year. So perhaps those circumstances allow these shots to make a little bit more sense.
If not, then put her in a normal, relaxed pose in a normal uncluttered setting and practice your exposures, lighting, etc.
We didn't spend much time on this outfit, as again the point of using it was basically to make use of the long zipper, and there were other concepts I wanted to devote time to (and even then we didn't end up getting the chance to do everything). I don't know if I'm going to eventually post photos from every outfit that we did this day; but I will say that the reason why I posted these photos at this time is that I already had them edited, and unlike some of the other outfits - particularly the first one we did, which we spent the most time on and has BY FAR the greatest variety of poses - I didn't think there was much chance of my finding "better" poses on further inspection of the unedited ones.
In other words, I did do more straightforward poses that day, and I haven't shown you those because I'm not finished editing those yet, while I figured I was finished with these.