Laetitia and Tiffany

Last week, a friend of mine asked me to take some portrait of her, and of course, I didn't say no to this gentle request. As I knew she had an older sister, I asked her to come together, so that she could maybe help me with my gear and, eventually, I could even bring some pictures of her.

As my friend arrived, she found herself a bit shy in front of the camera, so I decided to take some shots of the two sisters together, just to let her feel more confortable.

I set up my equipment (basically, I mounted my 580EX II on the stand, with the Cactus trigger and the white umbrella to shoot through) and started to take some pictures. The sun had troubles to shine through the clouds, but sometimes some ray of light came to us, and (as it was late in the afternoon) it was already quite low on the horizon, which gave me some nice cross light opportunities.

They were really sweet, together, and also pretty much collaborative, provided none of them is a real model.

When I asked them if they didn't mind lying on the grass, they didn't refuse at all, and this gave me the opportunity of taking this nice shot.
Flash was at 45 degrees on camera right, as you can guess. The light from the sun gave me some rim light on the hair, but nothing really strong.
I also wanted them to have some nice posing...

Again, they had no problem at all following my instruction.
The flash was at 45 degrees, left camera, and you can see some really low reflections of the sun light on the hair, again.
Also, the position of their hands gave me some light reflections on their faces (not so much, just a little bit).

Light went down pretty fast as clouds were covering the sky and becoming grey... that grey that can only mean it's-going-to-rain.

This gave me, anyway, the opportunity to work with a very dark background, which actually turned out to be completely black. Now I really had complete control of the light!
I didn't find it easy to work in such condition, but... with the help of this white stone column, I both had some natural reflector and a nice location for continuing my session.

As you can see here, main light is coming from camera right (through white umbrella) but the white stone is pretty well reflecting the light to fill shadows. Also, I had her sister Laetitia holding the silver reflector for even more reflections.
The only complain I have with Tiffany is about her dress: black is not really the right colour for such portraits... I would have preferred some white cloths, probably. The same of course for her sister.

Finally, I decided to play some Hide and Seek with Laetitia

Flash on the left, through white umbrella, creates some quite soft shadows on her face, with a final result that I liked a lot.

I really enjoyed this photo session. I asked them to train a bit on their smile, for the next portraits I will eventually take of them, but after all it was a nice evening, and I really have to thank both of them!