Jethro, for a first portrait it's not bad and show you are well on your way to improving for your next one, and the one after that etc... i know you can take a good photo and i am sure you will learn portraits very quickly, through practise. She would make a good subject to practise on.
Things that struck me in order of viewing:
1. Your subject's eyes are an amazing blue. They really stand out against pretty much every colour in the image. An interesting contrast. Perhaps a blue shirt would compliment nicely.
2. The composition. I believe she is too far to the right of the image. Slightly to the left of middle would better suit her gaze, which is to the right hand side. This leaves a bit more 'space' for her to gaze into. Same rule goes for moving objects such as cars. Give the subject somewhere to move into. (Her eyes are obviously looking into the camera, but her posture isn't.)
3. The smile. She has a wonderful smile.
4. The background. As said above, should be a bit darker but that can be fixed in photoshop using layers. This will put much more focus on your subject, which is much more important.
5. DOF a bit too shallow or camera shake. Easy fixed and i am sure you know how.
I hope this is helpful. I rarely do studio style portraits myself, i much prefer candids and i don't have a studio
My website has quite a few candid portraits in the military section that would make good examples. I'll be uploading a few more this weekend. Link is below.
http://www.stevekilburn.com/gallery/555354
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:43 pm