2 Photos - 1 New light reflector

Okay guys, I got the chance yesterday to play around with my new light reflector and I really have NO idea what I'm doing with it.

Typically I wouldn't be shooting in these horrible midday sun lighting conditions.

But, I had a set of twins who are family friends at my disposal for the afternoon and we were just having some fun!

I didn't really get any good pictures with the reflector because, a. i don't know what a good picture with a reflector looks like and b. the girls kept saying that it was BLINDING... lol so they would have rather killed me than have the reflector in their face.

I was using the silver side, but I also tried the white matte side and my issue was with that was I couldn't see any difference when I directed it towards their face.

The first one, I know her face is bad, but like I said they were going to kill me :P

The second one is a more dramatic usage of a light reflector. I don't even know if this looks good or works so please please any comments, tips, advice would be greatly appreciated!

Oh by the way, these are straight out of camera.

Thanks, Heather

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No help? Sad! Is this is the wrong section?

Number too works well!

As you can see, in the first one you have used the silver side, giving a very sharp lighting on her face, you can see how her face is lit up more than the rest of her!

number too i dont understand how you have used the flector

The light source is coming from over her left shoulder, hence the shadows, but there is the catchlight on her eye where you can see the reflector, but i can see where its has bounced back onto her?

Having a few friends around to have a bit of fun with is the best way to learn! I hardly ever use the silver side of my flector, as like i said it gives back harsh light, so i just use the white witch bounces back soft lighting!

A bounce flector is just used like another light source, it fills in the areas that are dark, like eye sockets etc...

Best way to see how it works, get a touch led flat on a table, on facing something on the table like a glass or something, look how only one side is lit up? Now bring the white flector to the other side of the torch and the glass, so you can light the other side of the glass too!

Hard to explane, so try it out!

Most of all have fun!

I'm by no means an expert, but of the two I think #2 looks the best.

I too have a newly acquired reflector, silver/gold and am using it in different ways to test.

The first looks like a pretty good use of the reflector. In the second one, the reflector looks too low. The reflector is providing the overwhelming majority of the light and by being too low is causing the shadows to go up instead of the more natural down - a variation on ghoul lighting. Unless you are going for some sort of special effect, it is generally better to keep the light source above the subject's eyes. At least you shouldn't see shadows going up and highlights on the bottoms of features.