Night shots

Shot my brother at night, got some cool shots. all critiques welcome.
I was mainly trying to have fun and work on using 2 lights in a shot.

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I like the first one, but would have had someone hold a white 30" X 40" art board to his right to try to bounce some fill into the shadows on his face.
In #2, try aiming the flash higher to avoid the hot spot in the grass, or use something to 'flag'/modify the light falling on it.

both are very well received comments. these are the details that i miss because i dont know what im doing wrong or don't know that they can be corrected. since i usually shoot by myself unassisted i really need to invest in another small light for fill and maybe some grip equipment to hold stuff for me.

I think Frank's comments are dead on. But the important thing here is that you're out there trying new things. Try more! And then more! Soon it'll all be coming natural to you.

The first one looks flat to me. Like a cardboard cut out? Mayb angle the front light more to camera left? looks to me that it was close to being straight on.

I honestly don't feel the first one is flat at all. The light was camera left, beauty dish from above

I think that cutout look comes from the highlight (white outline) being prominent around the entirety of the subject. I didn't get that impression at first, but the more I look at it... I started to see it that way as well.

maybe i don't understand correctly, i see plenty of shadows in the first one. maybe i dont understand what a flat picture is.

a quick google search showed examples like this:
http://media.photobuck​et.com …102lightwaterma​rked-1.png

in that picture there dosent seem to be much dynamic range, no contrast between highlights and shadows. where as in my picture the image does have deep shadows in some parts due to the BD.

maybe it's the edit? below is a less treated version, does this help it look less flat? i really would like some feedback because to me flat is a four letter word i hate it and never want my shots to look that way.

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I didn't get the impression that the image was flat... I saw the shadows on the left side of the face (camera right) as well as the right hand (camera left). However, I suppose the jacket appears flat; I think it is underexposed and detail has been lost in it, making it look 1-dimensional.

Then again - maybe I don't know what flat is either :-/