Try something different...

I decided to try something before going out and buying more gear. I lit this with one Alien Bee AB800 for the background and used my SB800 to light the face (on camera, you can see the annoying shadow). I did still have to do some retouching in photoshop because the light was uneven on the left of the frame - but it wasn't too bad.

Well I think Denise and I are both convinced that we need another Alien Bee to really make this white background stuff work. I should be able to use my Nikon SB800 and reflector to light the subject but we need more light to blow out the background correctly. The whole experience has been incredibly frustrating. The only good point about today is everyone was feel much better toward the end of the day - probably with the exception of me because of this stuff.