What you think of my photography

I'm getting into photography a bit and I took the following shot of my sister when we were on holidays.

I used a Nikon professional camera.

I really like the lighting and shadows in it, and the colours.

What do you think?

I'd appreciate your opinions…

Make sure to zoom etc so you can really look at it!

Thanks for answering mine will watch spelling next time and thanks for lovely coment: D now i have to say i really liked your photo it was so so sharp which was perfect and also you had nice contrast with the light and the dark across her face. You do have nice colour in it as the colours really go well together i deffo think you have a real talent for photography

It's really pretty. The picture is sharp and real clear.
I love the sun shining on half of her face and her not giving a smile and stuff.
it's actually a nice headshot.

Sorry, no, the photo has problems. It is not horrible, I'm not saying that, but these people gushing all over it really show a lack of knowledge.

The bright side of her face is blown out with over exposure. Look at her eyes. They are not even the same color any more. You can see the blush make up on the shadow side of her face, but there's nothing on the bright side. You have obviously let the camera make all metering decisions for you. It has primarily based it's metering on the darker side and thus the bright side is over exposed. YOU should have metered for the bright side of the face and allowed the shadow side to fall where it may. That would look much better. You could have even popped some fill flash at about a -1.5 EV to put some more light on the shadow side when metered for the bright side.

Also, the composition is bad. Why are you in landscape orientation? You should have the camera in portrait orientation.

The photo looks over saturated to me, whether you did it in software or if you have too high saturation set in the camera, it is a tad overdone.

By the way, what are you calling a "professional" camera? Every DSLR is NOT a "professional" camera. If you actually were using a multi thousand dollar true pro camera, I think your knowledge would be better and these mistakes would not be made.

I'm glad you like the photo, and it is something you will always want to have as a memento of your sister. But you are asking about the technical side of your photography, and THAT is the answer I'm giving you.

I think the left side of her face is a bit overexposed, but I like it. The colors are bold and it really says something.

Not a lot - I'm in agreement with Steve P (and he does know what he's talking about!)

The lighting & colours in it are not good - half the face is blown out and the shadow/highlight transition is pretty harsh. If some thought had gone into positioning your sister properly you could've avoided this problem (given that it's not intended to be a candid shot). The colours look a bit over saturated to me - there's also a strange blueish colour band on her hair which extends into blue speckles on her forehead - looks like some chromatic artefacts to me.

The focus isn't tack sharp either - particularly on her eyes. Compositionally it's a little dead centre - if she'd looked to camera left & been framed better you would've got better lighting on her face & improved the comp. The b/g in the mirror is a little busy too, but I'm guessing your aperture was limited (kit lens?)

As Steve says, the Nikon D90 is not a professional camera - it's a high end consumer DSLR.