Help!!! (With shadows!)

Alrighty, here is my problem:

I was asked to shoot my friends dance portfolio, but being only 17 I dont have a light set up, but I figured I would be ok with just my flash. Well now I have this shadow problem....

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...Untitled-1.jpg

The first picture (the original) has better skin but I hate the shadows they make her look heavier and they are just distracting. The second one (the after) is more sleek and no so distracting but she looks pasted onto the background (and excuse my sloppy PS job I had to do that in 5 minutes so I could post it).

Anyways if you guys have any ideas on what I should do (or even just let me know which one you like better!), any at all, it would be totally helpful!!

Thank you so much!!

~Amy

Shoot, I just read the guidelines (which I missed when I first posted this) and I've posted this in the wrong forum. Is there any way to move this? Sorry everyone!

~Amy

Sure, I just moved it to Studio & Lighting.

You're only about a foot away from your background, so that's why the shadows are so well defined. You could move her away from the background to soften them, but they will get larger unless you've got a huge room. If the room is big enough (this is really more like commercial airliner hanger size though) you could have your model so far away from the shadow wouldn't hit it because of the angle of the light. There are a lot of ways to do something like this with only one light, but IMO you're not going to get rid of the shadows.

OTOH, shadows aren't necessarily bad. In the right context they can provide a lot of drama to a shot.

The strobe looks like it is almost directly on camera. You need the subject out from the background at least 4 feet if possible. The strobe on a stick with (lightstand) with either an umbrella or softbox to soften and wrap the light would also help an awful lot. The following was shot in studio with hot lights through a difuser and a 42 inch reflector to the left side to act as a fill light.

Can you move your flash of your camera at all? Do you have a light meter? If not the suggestions below might be tough to pull off.

Move the subject off the background as suggested.

Move the light off to one side at an angle. If you don't have a softbox try blasting the flash at a piece of white foam core (bouncing the light back to the subject -rather than directly at the subject) - the bigger the piece the bigger the light source the softer the light (less contrast and shadows)

Put another piece of foam core or something to reflect the light opposite the flash. This will help fill in the shadows as well.

Hope this helps - good luck!

If you can't move the flash (eg bracket), can you move setup to a natural light source? A friend has his backdrop strung from a clothesline in his garage so he can open the door. Of course, if it's 10 degress out, that may not work too well.