It's all about the eyes!

Always remember when you are taking a portrait of someone, to keep the eyes as sharp as possible. To do this, I always focus on the nearest eye to me. I always try to make sure I get a catchlight (the reflection of whatever light source I am using) in the upper part and off to one side of the pupil. This makes the eyes stand out. Whatever I do in post processing, I never blur the eyes. This photograph was blurred a little in post, but I removed the blur from the eyes. We set up and took this shot in less than five minutes. One SB-800 flash camera right triggered wireless by a SU-800 commander. I get asked often why I don't just use the commander built into my Nikon D-300S. The reason is the SU-800 uses infared light to trigger the flash and the onboard commander on the camera uses a series of really fast pulses from the on-camera flash to trigger the off camera flash. These pulses of light, although they won't show up on your image, will cause your subjects pupils to contract to almost a pinpoint. I like big pupils!