When we arrived at the location, I began looking for the best place for the shoot. I wanted to keep the sun behind the subjects to make for a nice back light. I found a cool red chair and thought we would use it for the prop. I turned it so the sun was behind it and to the right. I could have taken the picture just like that, but didn't want to blow out the background in order to expose for the foreground. I wanted it to be more formal as well so I put up one light with an umbrella just to the left of the camera and close to the chair (it's just outside of the frame in the picture below).
Just as I was ready to get my subjects in place, the sun went behind some very thick clouds and totally took away my back light. I could have gotten a good picture without it, but I'm looking for better than just good. So I took the little bit of time to setup one more light behind the chair and to the right to imitate the light I was formerly getting from the sun. I put a Honl Speed Grid on it to control the beam of the light.
I put the back light on manual mode at 1/2.5 power. I set the front light in TTL -2/3 stops. Those numbers are the final numbers, of course I started a little different from that and adjusted just a little once I took a few pictures. The key is to balance the strobe light with the ambient light so people don't look at it and say, "he obviously had a light here, here, and here." What you want them to say is, "great picture!"
You can see that taking the time to setup the back light really paid off. It rims them out nicely and separates them from the background. This gives the picture dimension and takes it from a good photo to a great one.
Enough talking, here's my favorite:
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