Hiya Andy - a great (and very well modelled!) final shot for this year's 52.
All of your technicals are, as usual, spot on. You asked for views on lighting and I'll prefix what I'm about to say with the obvious fact that I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I have been mucking around with single/dual flash for a bit and I'm starting to work out a bit more about it. So now I know maybe 0.1% of what I need, rather than 0%
1. L/R flashes - this is a fairly common setup, especially with a 2:1 power ratio... but, it's actually quite "unnatural" when you think about it. When do you ever see 90 degree split lighting occurring naturally, save for reflections off water/sky (and then it's a vertical 90 degrees rather than horizontal as you and most other people have it). I read a suggestion from someone else on here (who knows far more than me about such things) that if you want to use a fill with an off camera key which is to the side (e.g. 45 degrees say), you're better off using on-axis fill, i.e. hotshoe mounted or even bounce fill off the ceiling, but importantly from a light source directly in line, horizontally, with the camera. Otherwise you can end up with competing shadows which, again, can look unnatural. The exception to this seems to be fashion portraits which quite often have big light sources left and right, sometimes equal or nearly equal intensity... but I think that's more about flooding the subject with very soft light from all angles to fill pores and can leave the subject looking very flat/plastic as there's no definition left (which is the idea!)
2. Size of light source - I realise this might be more to do with what modifiers you had available to you, as the catchlight which appears to correspond to your flash camera right looks like a rectangular softbox... that's ideal. However, the catchlight corresponding to flash camera left looks very small and it's this small lightsource which is perhaps contributing to the relative harshness of that fill? It will mean (I think) that glossy highlights (sadly our skin is glossy without serious amounts of makeup) look a bit more pronounced than they would with bigger lights which illuminate the micro textures of the face more evenly. This shows up as shinier "crests" (think waves) under and around the right eye and right of the tip of the nose...
You did ask
However, have said all of that - it's pretty minor - and the lighting you have is still very complementary and your posing of Mrs Posiview is brilliant. I love the look she's giving the camera and obviously the Help for Heroes top is also on theme as well, so a double score there!
Best of all, you've submitted yet another great photo to wrap up your superb 52 for this year, which deserves a massive well done!
