My wife

With the exception of some type of difuser, what could I do to reduce the sunlight glare on the left side of her face and body?

I think the lighting is pretty good, and the exposure as well. And like you said, opening up the aperture would have helped.

Fill flash would get rid of all the shadows in the first image.

I used fill flash on the right side of her face

Should used another flash or turned the power up? It was really dark without the 580EX on her.

I like the first one, the pose on #2 looks like it could be better.

#1: Smile and pose is nice. I'd reduce exposure 1 1/2 stop or so to get rid of the overexposed side of her face and neck then use fill flash with +1 FEC. Does that sound right to anyone that knows more than me?

#2: EXIF shows that was at 33mm, I don't know that opening the lens up all the way would do much to blur the BG much. I kind of like the pose but it'd look better in the sun.

SurfKahakai wrote in post #5662892
I used fill flash on the right side of her face

Should used another flash or turned the power up? It was really dark without the 580EX on her.

It's tough when you have a bright side light like that. Other than using a diffuser, it would be hard to bring out the detail lost in that area of blown light on her face.

Your fill flash looks great, but you can't combat the sun for brightness.

I think that they are quite nice regardless of the highlights!