cgardner
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Dedicated FM
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Glad you found the tutorials helpful. I'm preaching to the choir here , but it looks like you've mastered the basics of correct exposure and lighting which models the face naturally without any harsh distracting shadows. If anything I find the shadows a bit dark for girl her age and would suggest trying a bit more fill. Its tough to pose a kid that young but with your older subjects start the process by trying to find the most flattering precise, balanced facial angle before setting the lights.
As for fill position I suggest putting the fill directly over the camera so its catchlight falls near the center of the pupil (easy to retouch out that way). A camera-flip bracket does that job nicely. The Stroboframe brackets have a tripod socket on the bottom. An educational experiment is to set-up and shoot with neutral fill, and then without changing anything else rotate the fill around to the shadow side in 15 degree increments, keeping it the same distance from the bridge of the nose (use a string to measure distance). That will allow you to visualize what happens to the modeling of the face created by the key light. As the fill moves back behind the tip of the nose you'll find the cheek on the shadow side will behind to shade it and dark unfilled voids will appear in the smile lines, corners of mouth, etc. The exercise will train your eye to see them. Also helpful during that same exercise is to turn the key light off and shoot with just the fill in each position. That will help you to visualize what the fill is covering and where its shadows fall when it isn't centered. An hour of systematic testing like that is worth a month of trial and error discoveries.
Dilate is wider open, so I think you mean constrict. Something I've noticed with kids is that their eyes seem to dilate more than adults in the same light. To get the pupils to constrict you can also shine light on the wall your subject is looking at. But if you shoot at 1/160th to 1/250th normal room lighting should create normal pupils without affecting the color balance.
Good start.
Chuck
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