First family portrait work with D800

Took some family portraits of my stepson's family yesterday. A couple of firsts. First time using my D800 for this type of work, first time using Camera Control Pro 2 to shoot tethered. This is pretty much a JPEG straight out of the camera except for some cropping and an adjustment to straighten some of the vertical lines. This is my first time posting to the photo critique forum so I wasn't sure of the resolution that I should be using.
EXIF data:
Camera: D800
Lens: 50mm f/1.4
Shutter: 1/250
Aperture: f/8
ISO:100
Lighting: 2 Einsteins with umbrellas and diffusion covers
Composition was somewhat limited due to objects above the mantel of the fireplace and bookshelves to both sides of the fireplace. Any and all comments and/or criticism welcome since I am trying to improve my results for this type of work. Unfortunately due to my work schedule I don't get nearly the amount of time I would like to practice.

Thanks for looking.

81 views and no comments?? Come on folks, I would really like some feedback. Good, bad, sucks big time? I see a couple of things I probably should have done differently but I would like to get some other opinions.
Thanks,

I really like the background, But not the bodies angled away. The lighting looks good also. I think with a different pose you could have cropped so the wood of the fireplace created a frame. I did not like leaving the sides past the edges of the fireplace (walls) in the crop.

The slight edges of the walls in the shot highlight any distortion and compound the off center angle.

Looking at the image the first thing that gets my attention is the pose. Not liking the back to back look. The vase and flower arrangment is a little distracting. In fact alot of the background is distracting. To busy. To many verticle, horizontal lines, reflection in the glass. To me what would have looked better is to have them further from the background and open up the shutter to throw the background out of focus. Just my $.02

Thanks, that is what I was looking for. The vase should have been moved or removed. I had also noted the reflections and the logs in the fireplace that were distracting. Interesting views on the pose, something I need to consider in the future.

I judged the Vase as a holiday decoration giving the scene a "Christmas" look. To me it added a little flare.

The first thing I noticed was the cropped foot on the left and the way the photo is cropped around the fireplace. I'm not too fond of either. I like the lighting on the boy's face who is on the right, but the boy on the left doesn't seem to have quite as much shading. The vase didn't bother me at all--like Rick, I thought it added to the holiday season.

The little doggie on the right must not like you--it's sticking its tongue out at you! Still a nice photo because I really like the boys' faces!

Some good things have been said already, my first thought was, the image could do with a warmer tone

View attachment 60512

What I would do to the image, even though I dont like cropping of their feets. Gave more light for the shadows (right side), warmed it up a bit, a little + on the saturation, cropped it, brushed with burn tool on the fireplace - you should have made a fire before shooting

To me the vase is very distracting...