David,
Hope you really wanted constructive criticism... and hope you DO find it constructive.
The first thing that grabbed me was the tilt to the image. It's distracting and doesn't appear to have any purpose -- everyone realizes that the 'cheesy fake column' (don't worry about using it.. I've got one, but never had the nerve to use it! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] ) is probably vertical, so the tilt throws everything off balance. You can often get away with tilting things that don't have a known reference, but...
Secondly, poor girl.. ya chopped off her feet. Whydja do that? If you're going to crop legs, doing it at mid-thigh looks OK, but not right above the ankles.
No, I don't know that you needed more light on Valerie's face. Maybe a slight splash more, but there's enough light that we see most of the details of her lovely features. It looks like you let the light on her shoulders create very hot and, in the case of her right shoulder, completely blown out areas. Her chest is almost there, too, but just barely not.
Those are the big things... a couple of nits... behind her left shoulder we see just a smidgen of the dress. Turning her one way or the other would have either (a) used the arm to block the little bit of dress we see, or (b) allowed us to see more... as it is, the smidgen is distracting.
And, look at how her skin bunches on her right shoulder/armpit area.
Finally, a question.. is her hair two-tone? I'm looking at the bun and wondering if she's really got just a tuft of blonde-ish hair or is that just strongly backlit hair?
Hope you get a chance to use the studio, again. I much prefer studio work to outdoors. Yeah, it takes a bit of learning curve to get everything nailed down but when ya get it going... look out!
So, post some more of this lovely lady!
Wayne
This is Natalya