Exercise: Portrait - scale and setting

A pragmatic choice for this first exercise all about composition and the weight of attention to place on the face of your subject.

I opted for an outside setting i.e. our garden. Two reasons - firstly I wanted to try out a new 'pancake' lens so reckoned that I'd be taking quite a few images- this plus the limited time available as far as my 'model' was concerned suggested a setting close by was the most practical option. A walk round had already suggested a few settings within the garden bearing in mind I wanted to complete four scales of portrait in one session i.e. 

• Face, cropped in close
• Head and shoulders
• Torso, taking into account arms and hands
• Full figure

P708 : f6.3 @ 1/50  128mm  ISO 100 AWB

                                                        

P709 : f 5.6 @ 1/60  87mm  ISO AWB

Decided to shoot P709 slightly offsetting the face and shoulders though I'm not sure this position works as well as the two below.
 

P710 : f4 @ 1/80 31mm  ISO 100

 

P111: f4 @ 1/50 26 mm ISO 100

Looking at the first two images, it seems to me that though the eyes are very dark, they draw you in, possibly because the look is very direct i.e.  the subject is looking straight at you. In P710, we stand further back and the eyes still look out in the previous direct way but are less the main draw as there is less detail to see and they seem more balanced by the smile. The pose is becoming more dominant and in itself suggesting a little more about how the subject is feeling. 
In the last image, the full figure,the pose is far more dominant and in this particular image the background intrudes. Though the direct look of the eyes challenge you to look at the figure, the background threatens to pull your look away. Wonder how this would look if the background were more plain or blurred?