Self Photo. CC please!

Vetteography wrote in post #6014399
Sorry, it's just that I thought the mullet was an endangered species and I had spotted one in the wild...

Oh well, the hunt continues!

lol

They are out there. You have to look in their natural habitat. I could make a cliché reference to where you could find them but I won't!

TheReal7 wrote in post #6010653
Thank you.

Great advice Robert. You are correct about the flash. Flash was mounted on camera. I want to be able to have it remote but that seems to be a pricey thing to do. Unless I am wrong. It was partially cloudy and I took the shots when the sun was behind a cloud.

Here is one I liked with out a flash. This after a little bit of PP.

Egads! That's much better!

TheReal7 wrote in post #6013609
Thank you for the critiques. This is helping a lot.

Grip, how would you set up your camera/flash in this situation? AT least ballpark anyway. I am having a tough time understanding my flash. I need to spend more time in the manual I guess.

This is griptape's question, but let me have a shot at it.
By going manual and setting up the shot as if you wanted NO flash and also 3 stops under-exposed, then you would have a shot that had a good sky and everything else way too dark.

Then having tried it out with those settings add the flash back into ghe equation using the same aperture and shutter but using the flash as well, the subject and the tree come out exposed properly as will the sky. The only thing wrong will be that the midrange field and grass will all be very dark. So, in reality, you can't get away with it.

What is a CHEAP yet reliable way to get my flash off camera?

Emphasis on cheap. You have to go full manual on your lights (No ETTL) but its cheap and you learn a lot about flash/exposure using them.

As far as reliability I use one V2 trigger and two V2 slaves regularly. At times i get misfires but looking at the subject of many of your photos they would probably work out great.
Not sure how comfortable I would be using them on a paid modeling shoot.

Basically, buy one trigger and slaves and another cheap flash gun like a Sunpak 383 and go to town. whole set up will cost less than $150.00 (of course you'll still need light stands umbrellas etc.)

Thanks again for the great advice

I would of used the tree to frame yourself instead of using it as a leaning post.
Or just crop tighter, used some of those "landscape" compositioning rules. That still doesn't change.
The flash seems too hot on the first two shots. The lighting is just not balanced right.
Good exposure without flash (3rd), all you need to do is give it a little pop with the flash, not use it as a primary.