Firstly kudos to Zaver Shroff for such an outstanding pose.
One popular method of using flash is using a bounce method where you would bounce the flash off the roof at an angle so that rather than direct harsh light, a reflected more scattered and even and balanced light would hit the subject. While this works well most of the time, it does tend to love shadows below the eyebrows, and eyes because of the direction of the light as it comes from above from an angle. One method to easily solve this is to choose a spot which has a wall behind and turn your flash in the opposite direction (180 degree) to the subject so that it bounces of the back wall and reflects straight on to the face rather than at an angle. This method lights up the entire face evenly without shadows. This is a simple alternative to studio lights for close up portraits, although natural light is still the best option for me.
Flash can be fun especially if you bounce the light around. Also experiment with different light sources even a candle or table lamp. Some interesting snaps have always come about experimenting. One example is of using table lamp is http://www.footwa.com/the-lady-in-light-and-shadow/3349/
Zaver’s pose with her strong sharp open eyes and a still expression really help this image. We would have preferred to have a more bulkier outstanding watch for this, but we did with what we had. This snap was clicked using Canon 5D Mark III and Canon L series 100 mm lens at f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO 500. Canon Mark III quality at ISO 500 or even higher is remarkable and ISO 500 meant the value was just decent enough to light up the image without losing too much quality, remember the lower the ISO the better, and in bright sun light never make the mistake of clicking in higher than ISO 100. 100mm and f/2.8 give a good depth of field, the higher the zoom and the lower the aperture (i.e. the more wide the aperture is opened) adds to the depth of field. You can see her body is blurred but her face is well focused. Zaver also leaned forward a bit for this effect. Lastly since I was clicking at 100mm the general rule is I should then click at 1/100 sec (for 50 mm it needs to be at least 1/50 sec and so on). This ensures that the image is sharp. Obviously if I can click at a faster shutter speed like 1/200 its even better but then I will not get enough light. Any small light setting was adjusted by exposure compensation which in this case was +2.