Tangents

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Flash photography with a grid

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Flash photography: using a grid with a speedlight

During this photo session with Austin, I wanted to get a spot-light effect on, similar to that of a video light. Now, I have played around with various speedlight grids before, but never liked the result. Speedlite grids generally they concentrate the light to the extent that the direct light from a speedlight, becomes too concentrated and hard. For dramatic light, I really like the look of a video light, with that dramatic quality to the light, and with more defined shadows. I do want that fall-off in the light as the light spreads  Read more inside...

What if bounce flash isn’t strong enough?

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What if bounce flash isn't strong enough?

Because I so often use on-camera bounce flash, one of the questions I'm regularly asked is, what if there is nothing to bounce your flash off? There is also the variant - what if there isn't enough light from the bounced flash? In both cases, the answer is the same - you improvise! Not only that, but you need to be prepared to improvise. The photograph above is from a recent Bat Mitzvah, showing the big group shot of the kids. If you've photographed Bar / Bat Mitzvahs before, you know this is coming up, and you have to be prepared for  Read more inside...

Flash photography tips and ideas

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I met German photographer, Tilo Gockel / fotopraxis, during one of his visits to New York. Seeing this photo on his blog recently, immediately reminded me of my recent first attempt at playing with colored gels and flash .. except that he did it better! So I asked Tilo if he'd translate his article for us into English. It's always good to get another angle on doing something. There are a couple of good tips and ideas in there. Thanks Tilo!  

Flash photography tips and ideas

a guest post by Tilo Gockel Hi everyone, I feel very honored that Neil  Read more inside...

Controlling bright daylight with direct off-camera flash

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Controlling bright daylight with direct off-camera flash

Working with Molly K as our model during an personal photography workshop in New York, we put into action the thought-process when using flash in very bright light. There's a specific algorithm that gets us to optimal settings. But, as usual, there's more to a final image than just the numerical settings on the camera ...  Read more inside...

Tutorial: Bounce flash photography

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Tutorial: Bounce flash photography

An photo of a jazz trumpet player during a session in a club, lit by on-camera bounce flash. Since it's a perfect example of how I use on-camera bounce flash so that it looks nothing like on-camera flash, I'd like to use it to illustrate this summary of on-camera bounce flash technique: The light in this image is nearly all from my flash. The red hue in the background, and spilling onto part of the trumpet and his skin, is from the strong red lights in the night-club. To eliminate this, I under-exposed the ambient light, by choosing my camera  Read more inside...

Direct off-camera flash as fill-light

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Direct off-camera flash as fill-light

I really like using a medium-sized softbox when photographing portraits. A softbox allows me to get soft, directional light pretty much anywhere. The most recent example I showed here, was Lucia and Alvin's wedding in Central Park, New York. I do make it easier for myself  when using off-camera flash for photo sessions on location - I pick my battles. I don't try to make everything work. With a photo session where I can control the light and background and setting for my subjects, I can make it easier for myself by not choosing tough lighting  Read more inside...

Wedding photography: Using high ISO and flash at the reception

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Wedding photography: Using high ISO and flash at the reception

Chatting with other photographers at the recent WPS convention in Chapel Hill, NC, I was again struck by how there are so many different ways of approaching lighting. In this case, lighting at the wedding reception. The one photographer I was chatting to, set up multiple speedlights around the reception room, and then controls which are fired, from his on-camera Master speedlight.  Very impressive. In recent years, the wedding reception venues where I've shot on the East Coast of the USA, have moved away from being the  Read more inside...

Adding rim-lighting to available light, with off-camera flash

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Adding rim-lighting to available light, with off-camera flash

Off-camera flash need not be all that complex as it might appear to you if you are new to this. During a lunch-time conversation, a friend told me that she felt intimidated by the on-location flash photography by other photographers. The way to use multiple-flash setups seemed impenetrable to grasp. How would one go about and where do  you even start. This made me wonder - just how complicated should photography lighting be? I don't think it has to be complicated. It just has to be enough to be effective or solve a  Read more inside...

Off-camera flash in low light – choosing your shutter speed

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Off-camera flash in low light - choosing your shutter speed

With flash photography, the maximum flash sync speed is an important camera setting. It is the best go-to camera setting when you use flash in bright ambient light. But when we shoot in low ambient light levels, then we need to adjust our shutter speed accordingly. We would most likely be at a shutter speed where the ambient light shows up. We want some of the ambient light to register in our photographs, because it gives us context. Allowing more ambient light to appear in our low-light photos where we use flash, enhances  Read more inside...

Gelling your flash for effect – Blue background

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Gelling your flash for effect - Blue background

The idea of gelling your flash for effect has been a topic here a few times. I most often use gels on my flash to correct my flash when working with tungsten / incandescent light. There are times though when I gel my flash just for effect, creating a shift between my foreground (lit by gelled flash) and my background. In the examples shown in the several articles here, there wasn't the type of background where the effect can clearly be seen on easily recognizable "neutral" background. In the article turning day into night, we turned  Read more inside...