Shooting models in front of cars, lighting question.

[Restomage]

I got asked to shoot a model in front of my friend's car but I'm still unsure how I should get the perfect photo and the lighting right. I plan on shooting it outside in the late afternoon near sunset. I'm still unsure whether I should shoot with the model facing the sun so her face will be filled with natural light, or with her back towards the sun.
My ideas were if I shoot her with her back to the sun, I might have the flash off camera to one side, and a reflector on the other. Or if I shoot her with the sun in her face, a single reflector to fill in the shadows with no flash.
The equipment I have is a 5 in 1 reflector and I'm going to be picking up an Sb-600.
I'm really confused on what approach I should take and I could really use all the help I can get. Thanks!

 

[KmH]

Either approach will work.

Have you done much OCF work? Do you have any modifiers? Umbrella, softbox, diffuser? How high can you get the speedlight? eyelevel, 12 feet up?

What ever you use for fill should be on the lens axis.

 

[GeneralBenson]

Well, my first question would be, why not do both? Also, there are more places the sun can be besides behind the model, or straight in the face. I would suggest trying many sun positions relative to the model. You can get really good results from side lighting the model with the sun, and put the flash on the other wide, like a cross lighting sort of deal.

I would have to disagree that whatever you use for fill should be on the camera axis. Unless what KMH meant is something different, on axis light is generally regarded as coming from as close to the same direction of the camera lens as possible, with ring flash being the closest you can get. That's a perfectly fine place to have your fill coming from, but certainly not the only place it should come from. And when you are using the sun or anything else for that matter, as a strong backlight don't make the mistake of thinking that the only other thing you need is on camera fill flash you lighting the model's face. All that does is use on camera flash as your main key light, and give the usual awful on camera flash results. It's easy to think that the sun is the main light, and you only need to fill, but since the sun isn't putting any light on the subject's face, it isn't playing the role of key light, and therefore you still need a key light coming from and off camera angle, and give shadow and depth to the subject's features.

 

[Village Idiot]

Also, keep in mind about your reflections. You may want to shoot with the camera on a tripod, shoot the model, then setup for lighting the car.

 

[GeneralBenson]

^ Agreed.

 

[Andrew Boyd]

Concentrate on shooting some great photos. Don't get tangled up worrying about too much technical stuff here! If you've never used this flash you're talking about, the odds of pulling off something nice first time are slim. I would say spend your time working on your rapport with the model, figuring out some interesting angles but KEEP YOUR LIGHTING SIMPLE. If that means just the reflector, fine. Or just doing it with the late afternoon sun! The point is, shoot some great photos with a technique you know how to pull off, then if you want to play around with the strobe in order to learn, that's great.
This way you come out with some decent shots first, then you can gamble.

Andrew Boyd
TheDiscerningPhotograher.com