Portraiture and lighting

I spent some time recently experimenting with off camera flash and using two lights. I had just purchased two radio triggers and plagued a couple of people to let me take photos of them. It was very much experimental learning. The strobes were set on manual and I shot away, moving the lights and changing the lighting output. As well as all the technical issues I also had to look through the lens, ask my models to pose certain ways and look at the results as I went along.

My wife was the first model and I spent a long time and shot a lot of photos before I suddenly saw something that I liked in the way she posed to tie up her hair. I asked her to repeat the pose, even then it took a lot of searching to get the look I wanted.

Here is the photo;

The light set up is one speed light on a shelf above and behind her as a rim/hair ligh and a second strobe on camera as a fill. this was diffused with a stofen diffuser. I remembered to focus on the eyes.

here are some shots of my I took of a friend. I had a sort of a plan for this shoot. I see him a lot working on a laptop and I was thinking business. So I used two lights, one placed below on the computer and a second to the right of camera behind venetian blinds. I wanted the computer to dominate the shot. I asked him to pose and we tried different looks. The last shot is my favorite, I had deliberately tried to get a real response from him and asked him something that made him burst out laughing.

I like the effect the corner gives to the shots, both in subdividing the frame and also in bouncing the light back onto his face