Here’s a trick. Oops, I mean technique!
When shooting long-haired people using flash, for effect try to have them throw their hair every now and then and shoot when their hair is in the air.
It takes a little practice, and you need to pre-focus where they will be when you click. With a little patience, you will get something like this:
During a coaching session with a talented student last night, I tried to make a bad picture of him, to show him what not to do.
Problem is, I just could not do it. Here’s the picture:
Even when trying, subconsciously I…
You see, these simple rules aren’t about how great I am. They are simply good guidelines to follow, which, when we follow them, make things better. And with practice, these will become automatic, like when you drive to work.
So… learn the rules, and then shoot a lot.
This I frequently repeat: your camera’s light meter assumes you are pointing it at a grey subject – grey in terms of brightness. The moment you point at a predominantly light or dark subject, you need to tell the camera that. By using “exposure compensation” (the +/1 control) if you are in an automatic mode, or by setting the meter to “not zero” when shooting manual.
Like in this shot of a car I bought for my son:
To get the black car I needed to set exposure to minus 1 stop (-1). Else the car would have looked grey, not black.
Why do we still shoot (or rather: process) in black and white?
Here’s why.
That’s why.
And as to how: I strongly recommend that you shoot in RAW and convert to B/W after the fact, on your computer. That way you can decide on your “colour filters” later (in Lightroom, Photoshop or Aperture – but I recommend Lightroom), and you can try different settings.
My suggestion: go convert some images to B/W now!
“Chiaroscuro” lighting, invented during the renaissance, means “bright and dark”. Like this shot of tonight:
This kind of lighting means you need to:
That gives you creative and modeled, three-dimensional, and above all dramatic light.
No no – no worries, I am not going anywhere. This is about the first curtain/second curtain setting you have on your flash/camera combination.
First curtain sync means:
That gives you this, where the student at the School of Imaging class I taught last night is moving to our left in this slow shutter speed flash shot:
Odd. She is moving to our left? Then why is the trail off to the left? Simple – because the flash fired at the beginning of the long shutter speed.
Second curtain sync means:
So now the flash fires at the end. That gives you this, a much more natural looking light trail:
So now you know what that does. And no – this does not in any way make the light softer, or the backgrounds better, or anything like that.
Beginner’s tip: you should want a blurred background to get rid of distractions.
To do this, go to aperture mode (A/Av) and select a low “f-number”). Here, I used f/2.8:
And just to show you what not to do, here I used f/8:
Can you see how much less the subject stands out in picture 2? A whole different picture.
To achieve the look in picture 1, you can also get closer and zoom in more. But you knew that, since you have been reading here for quite a while. Right?
I usually advocate not doing this:
But this instead:
Flash backward, because you want the light to come from 45 degrees above your subject. That’s usually the way, since we usually use wider lenses for people shots, meaning we are close.
However, when you are using a long lens, like a 70-200, then to get to that same 45 degree point, you may have to aim the flash forward 45 degrees.
The problem with this is that with any flash angle that is even slightly forward, some light goes forward, straight from that flash to your subject. So you get this, horrible shadow:
The solution: Flash forward, but use a gobo/card, or even your hand, to shield the inch or two straight in front of your flash. So now the light can still go up to the ceiling, but it can no longer go directly forward to the subject. You could even use a grid but that eats a little more light.
You now get this:
I used my hand here, holding it an inch or two in front of the flash to block the path straight to the subject. Result, a well lit shot!
Here’s an available light portrait of the other day:
In a portrait like this, keep the following in mind:
And that is how you do that. Could not be simpler. Try some!
Here’s why you use proper lighting – with flash used for many outdoor shot too.
Say I shoot talented new model Anastasia outdoors using available light:
That is well exposed – but poorly lit. Even on an overcast day, there are shadows; no catch lights: not a great shot.
So now I do it again, with a big flash (a Bowens 400 Ws) with a softbox. I set the flash manually, using a light meter, as follows:
That gives me this:
I think you will probably agree that this is a much better shot. And the procedure is simple. On an overcast day you can use speedlights too, if you prefer.