I brought my client to the mountains in Colorado around golden hour. Shot with a Canon- EOS 5D Mark IV. 85mm lens.
I edited on Lightroom Classic, adding dimension in the lighting to cause a more dramatic effect and making the subject stand out. I accentuated the colors to pop and really wanted the sky to look dramatic/stormy.
I added some soft light to mimic the sun shining in on her.
We took a few photos like this, as I had her throw her dress up as high as she could and quickly put her hand on the back of her hat.
That was the most difficult part- to make sure I could get the dress to do exactly what I wanted, along with making sure her face looked relaxed, and her hand was placed lightly on her hat. I wanted this to look effortless and flow well.
I don't care for the weirdness in the sky and treeline in the background. Also, looks like a fake strip of "god ray" coming down out of the clouds and into the water.
With that said, I still gave this 4 stars. This is a very nice environmental portrait, and unlikely your client noticed everything I nitpicked about.
Weirdness in the sky. Huh. I love the tree line! I feel like it gives it nice shape and I love the green.
Thank you, anyway.
I'm referring to the halo on the mountain top treeline.
The sky and mountain in the background are a bit distracting. My eye gets hung up on the bright spots to the left of the pink dress too. I can appreciate the impact of a dramatic sky, but the contrasting combination of warm and cool colors brings some unneeded attention to that part of the photo. After all, the woman is the main attraction, and the background need not compete so much. And what really gets me stuck visually in the background is that patch of light colored mountain on the background (about a third from the right edge of the frame)... what Ryan refers to as a "god ray." I agree with him that it's sort of a distracting element of an otherwise fantastic portrait. I'd certainly love to have called this photo my own.
A different crop would've turned this into an Excellent photo. The strange fringing on that far right hilltop is disconcerting. The lighting on the dress is FANTASTIC.
I agree with what someone else said about the cropping. The empty space at the left of the frame and the clouds at the top are really kind of unnecessary. It's still a beautiful photo and worth 4 stars; I just think it would have more impact with a tighter crop.
At first, I didn't like the dress color all that much because it's such a jarring contrast to the muted colors in the environment. Maybe lowering the saturation on the dress might make it blend in better.
The lighting, pose, and the flow of the dress are beautiful, though.
While I generally like more space to the side of a model where he/she is looking, in this case I agree with what others have said about cropping out the strange lighter area in the background hills. I think the tree line almost serves as framing and provides an interesting contrast to the subject.
I wouldn't crop the photo though because that would change the overall balance, and move the subject closer to the right side of the frame. That would not be good. Instead, I would edit the colors of that area in the mountain to blend more seamlessly into the surrounding mountains.
And while I wasn't going to nitpick too much, I'd edit the white line along the inside of the top of the mountain that Marian mentioned. I'm not sure where that comes from – it's like a halo that appears from sharpening – and it's a pain to manually remove by cloning. Maybe the newer versions of Photoshop have some AI automated way of fixing those issues. Probably not a big deal to a portrait photographer, but it is for a decent landscape photographer. And this photo definitely bridges the two genres.
Your model, pose, flowing gown, and nature environment all work beautifully. Like others have mentioned, I think you have TMI by including the water, hills and sky. A crop of the top would help the viewer focus on what's relevant here and that's the beautiful model. You would still have the nature location, but it would be enough.