Well...the problem is that there is no secret sauce here. I use multiple lights or reflectors so much of what you see was because of the way the subject was lit. Even outside I use at least one speedlight and two or three is not unusual. Same with reflectors - or a combination of speedlights and reflectors.

I use a light meter religiously to balance ambient and flash/strobes.

I am pretty decent with Photoshop and most of the images you see are the result of multiple processes done on multiple layers with layer masks. I use plugins from NIK, OnOne, Imagenomic, and Topaz. The trick to using those is to use them sparingly - when it is glaringly obvious, you went too far.

I have a general idea of what I want as the final image and then just use my experience with Photoshop and the plug-ins to get where I want to go. Every image is an original as I cannot exactly duplicate an image for a second copy.

So the long answer is that I cannot give you a "cookbook" answer. The images are a combination of lighting, posing, background selection, post processing, and interaction with the subject.

Today's images are also the result of several years of crummy images and lots of critique by professionals who were not concerned with my reaction to their very honest critique. If my poor little self-esteem was wounded, well that's tough. Take their evaluation and learn from it.

One of the biggest things contributing to the images is 7 years of print competitions, both at the local club level and at the regional and international PPA competitions. Now those judges are REALLY nit-pickers!

There are other shooters here far more accomplished than I. My guess is their explanations would be similar to mine - there is no "here is how you do it," answer.

You could sit beside me for a week and watch me work and still not be able to duplicate what I do. What you would learn is some techniques and processes you could adapt to YOUR vision to develop YOUR style. Your work would never look like mine and you would not want it to.

Thanks for the compliment. The only HDR is the background of the baseball player looking over his shoulder - that tunnel was a 7-exposure HDR. The person and the tunnel were shot about 9 months apart.