This is Courtney, she and I went down to the river to shoot. I got the idea from a picture I seen online somewhere. Used a speedlight shot through umbrella, and basic editing in Lightroom. What should I be doing to improve.

Nice pix but I'll wait for a few other suggestions first.

My humble opinion....8X10 format, and crop out the dead space above her head.




Edit:  Or, include the end of the fishing rod, so we can see what is going on with the line, and where she appears to have hooked herself.

I was going for the, "about to cast and hooked her shorts look".

Yeah I saw that eventually, but at first, I didn't notice the line hooked to her shorts.  I just saw her standing there with a pole on her shoulder.  I think including the entire fishing rod would help "tell the story".

I agree.   Include the entire fishing pole, and narrow the depth of field ( lower f/stop) so that the background is blurred more.  That should help the fishing line be more apparent, and the background will be less distracting.

I was wondering how I could make the line be more apparent. I'll have to remember your advice if I ever do this again. Thanks for the tip.

I think it will work.  
If not, maybe another strobe fired up the line from the rear.

Great fist attempt!

If you try to do the fishing thing again, make sure she pulls on it a little so the rod is slightly bent.  It'll look odd enough to draw the eye to the line and eventually her shorts.

Then increase the power on the flash just a bit so she'll be separated from the background some more.  

When posing, have her arch her back a little more, or maybe try putting her foot up on a rock.  You can also have her arch her back, put her heels together and stick the butt out.  ExampleThat'll help to draw the eye to the hook too. Much of posing starts in the placement of the feet and will affect posture elsewhere.

Looks good ! Love the pose and her expression. Cant think of anything to improve

What is efix data ?  I personally like for all portraits a relatively shallow DOF  ( I typically use 2.0 to 4.0 ) .  When outdoors, I also tend to use minimum 105mm , typically shooting 120mm to 150 for 3/4 body or head

May not be your thing, but I like to have as less distracting background as possible , so two techniques I like is

Shallow DOF

using F stop

Reducing Ambient Light

HSS ( Auto FP for nikon ) your speedlight and kill background by underexposing .  

Please note that some people like this look, others don't !

IT at least gives you another creative option

You need to experiment since you will be in TTL but Manual exposure .  Don't forget to disable auto iso !!

Often people have sync speed at typical default of 1/60  . With Nikon, you should enable Auto FP at at least 1/250

If you use Auto Mode, you may get result like this :

F 2.8 , ISO 200, Flash in TTL-FP  camera meters ( Matrix ) entire scene and does this : SS 1/1000



If you use manual you can force SS to lets say 1/4000 (  F stop and ISO same as above )

TTL flash will ensure subject properly exposed but due to high SS background underexposed .  The background at time of photo was VERY bright.  Outdoors with a bit of shade you can actually kill the entire background to black

"inverse square law" of flash means it cannot contribute to the background...even if relatively close

Obviously takes more flash power

Camera : Nikon D7000 w/ 50mm f/1.8 using manual mode shot in RAW. Exposure was 1/160 sec at f/8.0  ISO 320
Flash : SB700 shot through a 30" umbrella at 1/4 + .03 power.

I already noticed I need to darken the ambient light some. I was shooting at f8 because I wanted to make sure I had her in focus. Need to try shallower depths also though.

A couple of more from this shoot. These were shot with the same camera / lens at 1/200 sec at f/5.0 with ISO at 125. But I used two SB700s. Speedlights were basically in front of her left foot and behind her back. I guess the one behind her was my attempt at a hair light. I'm still experimenting. Again, I need to work on lowering the ambient light.

Get rid of that 50mm as a portrait lens and get an 85 F1.8 lens.  85 on a DX 105-135 on an FX body are ideal.
All I see in these shots are the pickup truck and the bridge. They are what the eye is draw to. Shallow depth of field is your friend here, use it.

That 50mm 1.8 will give shallow depth of field.  

Watch the tree growing out of the head.

Why the strange F stop and ISO values?

I'm still learning.

A 50mm is not a portrait lens. I know now that we are using crop sensors it has become a go to lens but better results will come from using what I recommended. A longer lens would be more flattering for this model