As for the composition of the picture, she is a bit behind the tree. Don't hide your subject, she is pretty! The tree is distracting too (mostly because it is in front of her, but it also creates a void). My eyes are drawn to the void rather than focusing on the subject.
Beyond composition, there are plenty of tips and tricks on the web and youtube about how to highlight a subject's eyes or soften skin, etc. But all that is done in PP.

I find this quite useful: http://tinyurl.com/bpgmem8

My newest portrait :)
Portrait of a Vampire Dog!


(Only joking of course)

I think the picture is very good. Nice flat appealing light. You could pull her up front more and could have cropped out the majority of the tree- the dead space can kill a portrait. The softish lighting does a great job on a beautiful face. You have a wonderful model- Have fun practicing!! Look at the work of Great portrait photographers. Try Penn, Nadav Kander,Yousaf Karsh,Avedon,George Hurell,David LaChapelle and Scavullo to name a few..

Nice picture. I do not need any improvement to be caught by this (may be because of the subject). I like the light very much. Did you use flash or what? If flash, how did you avoid any highligts?

Thanks! I didn't think about the hair and the tree color bit, good call. Here's a couple more if you could give me your take on it I'd appreciate it! img src="" alt="" />

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Not bad at all. The flying baby is really funny. Maybe I'd give a little more attention to the background if I were you. Try to avoid things "sticking out" of peoples heads for example :) By just taking a step to the side or aligning the camera slightly different, you can find a calm background that gives concentration to the model.
Just my 2 cents.
All the best

@brickst3r
Thanks! He is a sweetie, a lot of fun to take pictures of if I can get him to sit still long enough to get one that's in focus!

@hdahl100
Thanks for the input. Are you referring to the first picture of my wife with the horse stuff in the background? Yeah, it's so hard sometimes to find a decent background around here. At least spur of the moment. I'll take a few pictures, think they are good and then take a closer look on the computer and be like, "ugh...no good". But I guess we are all our own worst critics! Prolly a good thing too :)

I took the liberty of doing a quick PS-job on the last portrait to exemplify what I mean with calmer background. It's not well done from my side, it's just an example where your model IMO stands out more than with the white sky cutting into half her head.
My point is that this can be achieved with just paying slightly more attention when taking the photo.
Again, this is really just my personal opinion. :)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1946924/7955946142_7ac87fb874_b.jpg