A little flash on the side?

A little bit of dramatic lighting can go a long way, especially when you are shooting outdoors or somewhere that studio-style lighting is unexpected.

This is straight out of the Strobist playbook...

With the setup of a hay bale, a beautiful young lady and one excellent mom/assistant we came up with some nice shots.

Equipment was simple ...
Canon Canon 430exII flash fired with Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers
Canon EOS 5D
and for the shot above, a 40" diffuser/reflector .

The flash is on a stand about 7' away to the right of the subject.  You can see by the shadows that it is overpowering the ambient light for a dramatic look.

Here is a wider shot showing the placement of the diffuser...


Here is another pose with the same setup.  Adding the flash allowed the sky to be darker, although with some low clouds, it wasn't as dramatic as I would have liked.