Working with a flash
Nick Turpin street portraits for Menshealth
I have decided to start at the beginning. I bought a Nikon flash for my camera. I was motivated to do so by several factors. The seasons are changing and the days are getting shorter and colder, taking more indoor photos and will be struggling to get enough light for good photos outdoors. I had shot some photos for a friend and was upset that the photos did not turn out as well as I had hoped partly as I did not have as much light as I would have liked. Finally I have been taking available light photos and reading David Hobby’s blog “Strobist” ( see links) and have be admiring all the dramatic looking photos made with flash units and have been wanting try taking some photos in that style.
There is a fundamental difference between shooting with added light and shooting in ambient light. In ambient light you capture, with added light you are really creating something that did not exist before. I had realized looking at my ambient light shots taken outdoors; that most of my subjects were posed back to the sun and that the sky was blown out. The camera has a much more limited range of brightest to darkest than the human eye. By using flash I could add light to balance the brightness of the sky. The challenge of that responsibility of creating images is that it takes a bit of experience to, create images that are attractive.
The major of using a separate flash is primarily the ability to control the brightness and color of the subject and the background independently. You also can chose to have the light hit the subject from a different direction than that of the camera. The speedlight also allow you to add light modifiers to shape the light, make it softer or change its color.
In the next series of blog entries I will be retracing my learning of off camera flash, showing results and sharing the lessons learned along the way.
One of the best videos on getting dramatic effects with off camera flash was this one from Nick Turpin, shooting with on the streets of London, you will find a link in the first line of this blog.