Me and a Friend- C&C Please

Shot this photo yesterday at one of the most beautiful places in the county. C&C please. (For those of you who care, I am on the right)

The off camera flash used to light you and your buddy was too hard of a light source. The prevailing light in this image is soft late afternoon daylight, and it is coming at us at about a 75 degree angle, but the off camera flash is about a 45 degree angle. Usually the two light sources should enter the scene at approximately the same angle so it appears that the image was lit naturally and they should match more closely contrast wise. Of course when you are in the shade as you are here you have two light sources, the sunshine and daylight. Sunshine is warm and usually rather harsh whereas daylight is soft and blue (because it is tinted by the blue sky.) If you look at the trees in the background the bright trees were lit by sunshine, the darker trees were lit by daylight.

Benji

I agree with Benji. The scene is nice, but the light is not consistent. The light is too harsh, in a different angle and cooler than the ambient light. This makes it look as if you were using a chroma-key or a fake background.
Keep shooting!

I agree with most of the points that the above critics have made.

I would add that the picture does look like the flash was used without a good reason. I would have liked to see what the facial shadows would have been without the flash, and I would also like to see how bright the arms and the pant legs of your friend would be without the flash.

This is something of an over-simplification, but in my opinion, flash should be used in portraits only to soften the shadows that need softening. Just using it to light up the subject is usually counter-productive.

I agree with the above posters. Could you bring up the fill light a bit and balance the shot a bit more? I think it's a decent image Also you could try a layer mask where you burn you guys in a litte.