Fun times with off-camera flash

I took these yesterday with my little canon camera flash, with a diffuser on it, mounted off camera on a stand to camera right, and a large white reflector to camera left.

I did not mount the flash to point directly at her. Instead, I pointed it at the reflector so to feather the light onto her. The sky was overcast, providing very soft light which was nice but it was still too much overhead, causing "raccoon eyes" (shadows in the eyes). It did provide some highlight on her hair and shoulders, however, so my off-camera flash provided the main light (and the catch lights visible in the upper left side of her eyes). I always tell people to turn off their camera flash and use light from off the camera. When you use the flash on the camera, it flattens your subject (producing almost no visible shadows), and causes the catch lights to be dead center in the pupil (the cause of red-eye - not to mention just not looking great).

When photographing a two or three year old, you have to engage them. She was willing to pose initially, but quickly got bored. I wanted genuine expressions and smiles. I talked with her about her upcoming trip to her grandparents' house and that initiated the excitement in the third picture.