FLASH!! AAaaAarghhh!!!

(Sorry...)

One of the things that puzzles non-photographers, and causes much apprehension amongst new photographers, is the deployment of a flashgun or two, even in "bright light". Watch the frowns and head-tilts as you put a Speedlight on your camera when "it's sunny, what's the problem?"

It's one of the things (I'm told) that isn't taught well, if at all, at colleges, and thus becomes a mountain to climb when faced with the real world and its frequent lack of "good" available light. There's often plenty of light washing about, sure, but if you are trying to make an image for a newspaper, the aim is always to think "tight and bright" first. (Even if we might mentally add "and sh*te!" to that...)

Luckily, the 'net can come to the rescue with a wealth of information now on-line, from people who have made a career from doing good lighting. I certainly owe pretty much all I know about Flash; Use Of, to the blogs of David Hobby and Joe McNally. You can do a lot worse, if you are new to the idea of lighting being something you need to manage, of reading Strobist's Lighting 101 and 102.

And you do need to manage it, as a jobbing pro, because you are expected to come back with something satisfactory from every job.

One of the greatest things to learn about flash is that there are always two exposures taking place; one for the flash itself, and one for whatever ambient may be about. Appreciate this for the first time, and you suddenly open up some creative doors...

A London Marathon runner, Jodie Allchin, photographed at The Leas, Minster. There are two exposures in operation here;

One, the ambient, was deliberately underexposed by one stop, which cut down the glare of the concrete and improved the detail in the sky. This left her face and t-shirt (important because of the charity element) a bit dark - though the bright concrete actually gave back some helpful fill-in through reflection - so an SB900 was deployed, feathered off so that it wasn't aimed straight at her, running at +1.0 EV (I think!). The feathering means the light that hits her isn't quite so harsh, as her face is lit by the more diffuse edges of the flash beam. It's only a small difference, but in the absence of, say, a softbox it does help a bit.

More after the break.


As I've tried to illustrate with the pic above, once you realise that the ambient and flash exposures can be separated, but still applied to the same picture, you have grabbed a lot of control back from "point and shoot".

The enemy of lighting like this, though, is usually time. You might want to develop a lighting theme, or use some light shapers like an umbrella, softbox or diffuser, but setting up a stand to hold the light, setting up a remote flash so it's off-camera all takes extra time... For the picture above, I did what I could with on-camera flash but knew I had a coffee morning to get to ASAP.

And indeed, even your subject, if for a local paper, is frequently (usually?) not used to being photographed by somebody seeking some subtlety in an image. They may wonder - sometimes out loud - just why you are faffing about. Recall the number of times that you have taken your first picture, and the subject thinks you are done, that's it, and makes to walk away... I now make sure that I say, very clearly, before I press the shutter for the first time that "this is just a test shot to see what the camera makes of it"! The flash is off for this first test, by the way.

This test shot, if you intend and have time for better flash, establishes what the camera wants to do with the ambient exposure. If it looks useful then go with it, or change it with exposure compensation as inspiration takes you. I often take my tester, then switch to manual exposure to dial in the final ambient settings I want. Now it's time for the flash test shot, with the flash positioned and adjusted (you have already got the stands and lights themselves ready, yes?). I have posted before about the PocketWizard ControlTL remotes, and Nikon's iTTL system also lets you use speedlights as remotes. All this is pretty quick to deploy, but sadly, on an "eight jobs a day-er" you may just have to go,go, go with on-camera and do the best you can.

Sometimes you'll encounter a job where the light is ALL flash, as there's too little ambient light to trust to get the image required. Below is a job that is like that and also, perhaps, "one that got away".

Britain's Got Talent Semi-Finalist Robbie Firmin, 8, photographed at Dickens World, Chatham, to promote acting classes for children over the Easter holidays. He is with Dickens World cast member Jennifer Lane, as Nancy. 

Luckily this was the last job on the list, so I had some set-up time, though Dickens World was open as usual so the other visitors meant this wasn't a painless task. Lighting here is one SB900, on a lightstand high and camera-left, firing into an umbrella in its white reflector mode. It is soooo dark in here that I opted not to even try to blend the minimal ambient with the flash, as I felt that would have pulled the shutter speed (the best way to blend in low-level ambient) rather too low for comfort, especially given my sometimes-less-than-steady hands now, and an 8 year-old subject... But with hindsight, I should have had a go at a few images at 1/30th sec and slower, as that might have pulled a little bit of shadow-fill from the ambient lighting. I confess that I was also concerned about the other visitors falling over the lightstand in the gloom by this time! Final settings were D3, 1/125th, @ F8 (for decent depth of field on both people) and 800ISO to help the flash, as it's also deliberately being used to light the scene generally. Like I said, it's dark in here...

The set of images that this one is from are ... OK... But I look at them and think I certainly need to do a bit more in future. Being lit with just one light source - placed off-camera so their shadows at least fall in a pleasing way behind them - means that their faces and bodies fall into shade a bit too readily. The umbrella is quite a big light source, so it does wrap around them a bit which is no bad thing. This is where making an effort to find some ambient light through altered settings would help to lift those shadows. As I said, there isn't much light here, though.  What would work, and maybe keep me away from possibly-too-low shutter speeds, is a bit of frontal fill, just a touch, from another flash. Again, this ought to have some sort of diffusion on it and I ponder whether one of the small softboxes, such as those from Lastolite or Lumiquest, fitted to a Speedlight on top of the MiniTT1 which is firing the remote, would be just the thing. It needn't be a powerful burst of light, just a blip, perhaps a couple of stops under the main light, to take some of the harshness out of the picture. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.  Time for a visit to Speed Graphic, with the wallet handy?

But I gratefully take considerable comfort from Joe McNally. Ever listened to certain photographers giving lectures and talks, some of whom would have you believe that their images are a magnificently crafted, almost divine blend of their skill, experience and an indefinable artistry, making a flawless image from their imagination fall perfectly into place? Frequently? 

Joe has written some terrific books, including; The Moment it Clicks, The Hot Shoe Diaries and Sketching Light. The last two especially are concerned with lighting in its many shapes and forms and all are excellent reads. And Joe makes it clear, sometimes laugh out loud clear, that he is, frequently, unashamedly, just hanging on trying to salvage a picture from the usual confused, unpredictable mess that is everyday location and assignment photography. He has over 30 years in the business, shoots for National Geographic and yet he can cheerfully admit to this. 

That's both refreshing, funny, honest and very encouraging for the rest of us jobbing snappers...