Off-camera Flash Tips 

• On camera speedlight: Try bouncing the light behind you and towards the ceiling or to the side instead of straight ahead or directly overhead. Avoid pointing the flash head directly at your subject unless the power is down and you're using it to fill in shadows or you want a very harsh look (perfectly valid if that's what you're going for). Only use your pop-up flash in emergencies!
• Use a reflector (placed opposite your main light) as a fill source. This is almost like having a second flash. Use a gold reflector to add warmth or a silver reflector to brighten and highlight
• Place reflector on floor and bounce flash into it to add light from underneath 
• For environmental portraits, choose settings (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) for the ambient room light. Then use the flash to light your subject properly. This lets light in but ensures your subject is lit and captured properly. 
• Soft light is big light (not necessarily a light with a diffuser on it). The closer and larger the light source, the softer it is (i.e. the softer the shadows it creates becomes on your subject)
• To harden/sharpen/darken the shadows, move the light further from the subject or make it smaller by removing modifiers
• Flash trigger types: IR (like Nikon CLS and Canon using pop-up flash or dedicated IR triggers), radio triggers (like Pocket Wizards or Radio Poppers or less expensive "cactus triggers" found on eBay), sync cord that connects the camera to the flash
• Try balancing your flash to the other light on your subject by adding a color gel and setting your white balance appropriately (orange (or CTO) for tungsten light and green for fluorescent). For an interesting effect, try putting your white balance on tungsten, placing your CTO (orange gel) on your flash and shooting outside at dusk. The sky will go deep blue but your subject will be properly color balanced.  
• Try slowing down your shutter (dragging your shutter) to let more ambient light in. Your flash will freeze your subject and the slow shutter will let in a little of the motion happening around them. Use rear sync or second curtain sync to make sure that the streak of motion is going in the right direction.
• High-speed sync allows you to use shutter speeds that are faster than your cameras maximum sync speed. The flash head is pulsed during the exposure. Good for outdoor shots when you want to open your aperture.

Rechargeable batteries that I use in my speedlights: Sanyo Eneloop. You can get them here at B&H.

Thanks to those that attended the off-camera lighting lecture. You can receive updates on new workshops and photography-related trips by following me on Twitter, joinning me on on Meet Up, liking my Facebook page or just sending me an email and letting me know that you would like to be kept up to date.

If you would like this presented at your club, school or organization, contact me.