Sisters (and using a reflector II)

Between the two of us, Randy and I have some beautiful girls...
I hope you'll indulge me this opinion....
although the hair color and skin tones between Randy's older children and his younger children are so strikingly different....
they are all gorgeous!
(if I do say so myself)

While Molly and Caitlin were both visiting, I asked them to do some modeling for me...
(I really appreciated shooting models that didn't move every split second -- really, really -- xoxo)

I have posted a photo of Caitlin similar to this one last week. Out at the fair, I had so many comment on how gorgeous that photo was.... I attribute it all to the gorgeous model.... with a little help from reflectors.

Here you can see in the photo on the left, the somewhat contrasty golden sun shining from the left. Although the colors are beautiful, the sun made sharp shadows on her face and made her skin tone very warm. So I enlisted the help of my handy, dandy reflector (held by my handy, dandy hubby) to cast some diffuse shade over Caitlin.
I love how using the reflector in this way brought our her creamy skin and gorgeous green eyes.
I could never have saved the first photo with any Photoshop magic.

In this set of photos, we used the gold side of the reflector to reflect the sun back at Caitlin. The sun was over her shoulder and without the reflector it would have been more difficult to get proper exposure on her face. However, the gold is a little too much for her skin.... makes it super golden... but with a black and white conversion, the gold reflector was just the right amount of light.

More back-lit and side-lit photos and use of a reflector.... the white side of the reflector this time.
Can you see how much using a reflector will help your back-lit shots?
I know that a lot of photographers will use a fill flash in this instance, and I might too if I had a speedlight, because I don't really like using the flash on top of my D90....
but the reflector gives such a nice soft light.
The only downside of using a reflector-- you need a helper or an easel.

Now, go forth and get yourself a reflector, you'll thank me.
(Thanks so much for modeling for me, Caitlin.)
Anyone else want to model?

PS... the photo that won Best of Class was the photo of raindrops on the grass. Thanks for asking ;)