[QUO
Joe Thomas : Stairs x3 - Original raw file[/CENTER]
I'm so glad, Joe, to see the large file. I like large margins around the subject in the planning stages! It is fine to have an environmental space in which your model inhabits but then you might show her again, perhaps, sitting on the steps, in a different pose, to show off the dress and/or looking at herself, but with different clothes.
Here's a suggestion. (I say this often so one more time won't harm). Print in B&W say ten copies, get a glass of your favorite beverage and sketch rough figures, (the girl seated, bending forward, doing a headstand whatever your mind conjures up. The specifics are not as important as getting some break from the limitations of shooting a live model. The idea is to use what you have already achieved, (and that's a lot), to explore what your mind can devise to make an entire mental mage of some happening or impact. Give it a title: Stairs # 1 and ask what it might show that uses that concept. Then go to Stairs #2.
As this is Riskit! You are in the right place for heavier criticism but it's your own project and not for anyone to show their ideas of stairs so I'd stick to this and use your first image as the foundation for everything else to come.
I hope that your model is available for more shoots. When you have decided on the composition for your next shot, then you can start working on the lighting. If the camera is on a tripod, think nothing of having the model move to a new position in the frame and take another picture for you to combine n photoshop.
Good luck,
You have tons of room to be creative.
Asher