Stills

The cup handle is necessary to provide context. No? Anyway, I like it there. I also like the background (but not the black tick on the left hand edge), and the 'not another photo' ten yard stare. There are definitely two people in this photograph.

Not sure about the skin tones. Maybe pushed a little far? Maybe not. It is a good effect.
 

The technical aspects of this are good: composition, tones etc. I suspect that skin tones and sharpness are just a function of 650 pixels. Colin's point about the stare and two people is an interesting one: you do pose her most of the time and some more informal, spontaneous shots might be worth juxtaposing with what you have done so far.
 

Apparently blogger ate my last comment.

I brought the skin tones down a bit from the original scan. Perhaps I went a bit too far.

Rex, I'm intrigued by you comment regarding sharpening; this isn't as sharp as this lens can do. I backed off the sharpening on this one in order to avoid more pronounced jaggies on Kate's glasses. Are you seeing oversharpening somewhere else in the pic or was it just a general feeling?
 

I see a very slight 'halo' on Kate's right arm.

I also see something odd about her glasses. That could be due to having white glasses with a black inner band, light being reflected off the frames and light being refracted through the lenses on to Kate's face, or a smidgen of over-shapening. I don't know which.

It is a beguiling gaze.
 

Oh, and a bit on Kate's hair.

I do feel guilty of being very nit-picky.
 

Colin's right about that background, very nice. Looks like a painted brick wall and an interesting lamp. Kate does look like she's expecting a photograph to be taken but this is not a critisism, just an observation, and perfectly reasonable. I'm not much bothered by the cup handle or the tick on the left, neither of them particularly draw my attention away from the subject.

The more I look at this image the more I like it but I do have one observation regarding the light. Because it's far stronger on Kate's left I'm drawn to the difference that light creates between the areas behind her left and right lenses. It's a minor thing but it is sticking in my head. Pehaps it is because those areas are symetrical and framed which encourages a comparison.
 

Rex, thanks, I asked for the nits to be picked and you obliged.

John, the one lens on her glasses has a bit of glare on it. I've noticed this before, but there isn't much to be done about except make sure she gets the anti glare stuff on the next set of lenses. ;-)
 

I have only ever done one portrait session and came away very impressed with anyone who can deliver top-notch portraits. Both shooter and model need to on top of their game else you really get some 'interesting' results. I have a whole file of them somewhere. The pose here is on the cusp of being predictable with the placement of the hands and the left arm being under the table makes it a little 'heavy' on the left side (as the viewer looks at it) of the picture. The lamp(?) in the background offers some counterbalance but it merges in with Kate's shoulder. The mug handle and tick are also a little distraction... but... those eyes! They drag you in and stop you trying to escape from the focus of any portrait - the face.