Portrait Photography - Shallow Depth of field outdoors

I don't often write about the technical side of my photography, but this post will be the exception. I've upgraded a lot of my lighting equipment over the past few months and it's really helped to unlock some creative possibilities in my work.  

The feature I've been enjoying the most out of this new gear is the Hi-Sync functionality of my Elinchrom flashes. By going over the normal Nikon sync speed of 1/250 I'm able to decrease my aperture and give a nice shallow depth of field to my outdoor portraits.

This was especially helpful for the portraits below because we had to schedule these portraits during the harsh noon sunshine.