[Dabhand16]

Anna Marie, you have not said what sort of lighting you are using. That is, is it flash, tungsten, one light or two, or three?

A basic portrait three light setup would be, and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I've got this wrong,

Main light high and to the side, between you and the sitter, fill light lower and on the other side, between the sitter (90 degrees) and the main light, also with a lower power. These are 'flood' lights. Then you have a catchlight with a tighter beam high and at the rear, (tempted to say back side...) same side as the main light. This light plays on the back of the head. If you have the space, this light should be BEHIND and to the side of the sitter, not just to the side. You can see the shadow detail before you start, so can make any adjustments. Studio flashes used to have a mains light built-in so you could do this. You can alter the power by the distance from the sitter, or by using lower rated bulbs, or dimmers if its tungsten.

If you have access to a fouth light, this can light the backdrop, usually set med to low height.

You can use a reflector to reduce shadows instead of a side light, usually white, but gold can give warmer tones, or even a slave fill-in flash with a diffuser (hankerchief) over the head.

The idea here is to create shadows, then control them. The old problem with using flash was you never really knew what the effect would be until the processing was done, unless you had a polaroid film back, but now with the LCD preview, this is not so much of a problem.

I've not tried this, but you could Google portrait lighting and see if there are any diagrams around. It is a lot easier to grasp if you can see the set up.

As Nick said, try to keep the backdrop well behind the sitter, or consider lighting the backdrop.