frickindarnThanks homie!
Not too bad, on your vertical if you're not holding them dead center use your grid lines to put her eye on one of the rule of thirds intersections. Focus on the furthest eye from the camera, if you can't get ahold of a flash yet, I have used a neutral looking flashlight and held it a proper distance to get some rim lighting/ pop to their faces as well as give a catch light to the eyes. Using a flash is a lot of time and practice to get just right and if not done tastefully will look harsh and gross. You're on the right track, you need a photo editor. Sony capture one express is free to use and is a more sophisticated lite version of lightroom. To get a more dramatic photo use lighting/soft box to get your exposure on them set and you can let the background fall further to under expose think like a good skate flash photo is taken. Darker background yet they still pop. Look up some contouring, dodge and burn, and portrait lighting tutorials on YouTube. They all give great info, can't upload examples of mine on here but can text you some if interested. I am learning as well but have landed many a gig with how I shoot. Pm me any questions.