What do you think?

I am really trying to get the hang of my lights. Using a light meter and the whole nine yards. I am really new at all this studio stuff, but would love to get some feed back. Thank you Brittany

You got two boxers to sit still...two thumbs up here!!!
I'm not a lighting expert, but I love the focus and the catch lights in the dogs eyes.

I'm no expert on studio lighitng, but the lighting appears to be somewhat bright on her forehead and very much weaker towards the bottom of the shot, what was your setup ?

Getting better Brittany. Unless I'm mistaken you are trying to render the background black. The problem you're having is that your subjects are much too close to the background and you've got lots of spill and falloff from your subject area lights hitting the background.

More directional lighting, closer to the subject will give you some more separation.

my subjects were about 4ft from background. and yes I was trying to render the background black. Need to really figure out how to use my light meter properly. I guess I should have subject about 5-6 ft away. I appreciate the comments and tips.

Hi Brittany,

If I recall you are using umbrellas as light modifiers. Umbrellas are very poor when it comes to control and directionality of light. It makes them great for some applications but not so great for others. Isolation of subject area from background is one of those times where the spill and lack of directionality from the umbrella is splashing light all over your background.

I don't know how much room you have but if you can really distance the subjects from the background that's going to work the best. If you could have 8 to 10 feet you would see an improvement right away. You're already lighting close to the subjects so you're solution is to either have more space between subject and background or use a different modifier that gives you much greater control. Something like a small softbox with a grid or a strip box with grid would work well.