Daughter-in-law
 

These are three of the possibilities from photos I took at Christmas of my soon to be daughter-in-law. I am thinking of painting the first one - I will probably crop a little (plus the colors are a little blue - so probably need to play with that in photoshop).
Input on these would be welcome.

Jane, what skin tones! Boy, are you lucky. Of these three I like the last one the best but I would take, oh, a few hundred more shots of this young woman, put her in various costumes, lighting situations, etc.

Watch for the wonderful cool colors in African-American skin, i.e. bluish and purplish hues, which can show up in reflected light areas (among other areas).

If I had such a gorgeous model available, I would reshoot and reshoot until I got something really special. I think your backgrounds are too busy and detract. You should thank your son on supplying you with such a lovely model.

I agree with you both - she is very lovely. Unfortunately she is living in St. Croix right now. She was here for a few days and ill most of the time- I got about a half hour to shoot her - not enough time to really get into it. I hope I can visit them this summer in St. Croix with cameras in tow. Any suggestion on traveling equipment would be appreciated. I am pretty much a newbie on the portrait photo taking.

I also agree that the background is very busy - it is impossible in my house to find a place that is not busy and still has light. I have to invest in some lights soon, because I have been relying on daylight which does not always cooperate. I read somewhere on these boards also about portable backdrops, which would solve some of the problem of the busy background. Of course, I intended to drop most of what is in the background

I posted it. It is portable. Basically it is two poles on tripod that support another cross pole. Any photo supply shop should have one.

I'd go with the third one.