The Gift of Flash - 001

Just to be clear, this new series of short posts do not refer to the following topics: the DC superhero Flash (in all his iterations), the multimedia platform from Adobe, and definitely not about a bit of unsolicited nudity. This and the other bite-sized bits of information that follow will talk primarily about the many creative opportunities that are made available to a photographer with the use of off-camera flash.

1. The ability to light glass

I'm not saying that glass can't be lit by using only natural light. It's just easier to light when you have an off-camera light source. One of the ways to light glass is... well, by not lighting it directly. This technique is called bright-field lighting. Essentially, you keep the light on the background and allow the diffuse reflection coming off it to reveal the outline and shape of the glass object. This is best carried out in a more easily controlled environment like a studio, but it can also be done outside of one when the conditions are right.

I was lucky enough to catch and capture the following setup during the department's open house a few weeks back. A shot that I could have easily struggled (or failed) to make without off-camera flash.

More to come...

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For those who are interested in the technical, you can hover your mouse cursor over the picture above to view my camera and flash settings. If you're interested in similar articles and would like to be notified when I put a new post up, either follow this blog (via Google reader) or sign up for e-mail updates on the left navigation bar. Thanks.