{"id":57,"date":"2007-08-23T00:47:54","date_gmt":"2007-08-23T00:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetneil.com\/tangents\/flash-photography-techniques\/1-natural-looking-flash\/"},"modified":"2024-09-01T00:07:46","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T04:07:46","slug":"natural-looking-flash","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/flash-photography-techniques\/natural-looking-flash\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural looking flash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flash photography techniques<\/strong><\/a>
\nIntro page<\/a>\u00a0 ~ \u00a0Natural looking flash \u00a0~ \u00a0Flash & ambient light<\/a>
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Making flash not look like flash<\/h1>\n

I use flash very often in my professional work and personal work.\u00a0 But I try and make the use of\u00a0flash not appear intrusive in the photograph. \u00a0I nearly always have an on-camera flash, but I try to diffuse it or bounce it wherever possible. I use as little direct flash as I can, except outdoors where I try and use available light, and use flash only to lift the shadows and reduce the contrast. However, sometimes it is just best to overpower the ambient light with flash – but still try to make it look natural, ie, not like flash.<\/p>\n

Let’s start off with these few photos. They were all done using flash on camera.
\nYou’ll note that there is no\u00a0discernible\u00a0flash shadow<\/strong>. I absolutely loathe a distinct flash shadow. So that’s the ideal that I always strive for – that it shouldn’t be obvious that I didn’t just use existing light. It isn’t always possible, but that is what I try for in every photograph.<\/p>\n

Indoors, where there are\u00a0surface areas to bounce your flash off, on-camera flash is hard to beat as an easy light source to use.<\/p>\n

With weddings for example\u00a0–\u00a0during the bride\u2019s prep and the groom\u2019s prep, I rely heavily on on-camera bounce flash to give me soft, directional light. Here are two examples where the flash enhanced the available light – the flash wasn’t the primary light source, but it cleaned up the existing light to give me nice lighting on my subjects’ face.<\/p>\n

For the image at the top:<\/p>\n