Guide to Flash in Digital Photography

January 3, 2008

As an aspiring photojournalist I’m very aware of the necessary skill of shooting available light. There are, however, a plethora of situations where a flash is completely acceptable. In fact, almost any shot can benefit from some additional light source. Think of it as shooting available light, just making more light available.

Flash can be used to:

• make a scene more dramatic
  • harsh lighting
• improve color
  • colored diffusion
• Enhance detail
• preserve exposure
  • fill flash
  • help with back lighting

Harsh lighting works well to take even the most mundane situations and give them more life. Some people use a harsh lighting to create a mood or highlight a specific area of the photograph. Recently I took a picture and bounced the flash off of a card diagonally onto a young girls face. As you can see the light illuminates her face and the plate in an unnatural manner, but it also gives the entire shot a more interesting feel.

Flash can also be used to improve color. During my trip to Mexico I took many photos of my sister Rebecca, bouncing the flash off of our room key. The gold side of the room key greatly warmed her skin giving her a natural and even tan. The back side of our room key was white so I could bounce white light into the shot if I wanted. The nice thing about bouncing the gold light into the shot was that it allowed me to selectively warm her color tones while leaving the blue ocean’s color in tact.

This gets me to another common use for flash: fill flash. Fill flash can greatly increase the amount of detail present in a sho, colors and figures come to life. Like my shots of Becca, it also allows you to properly expose the background and a figure even if there is harsh back lighting. You can do this by metering the exposure for the bright background, then adjust the intensity of the flash until the subject in the foreground is illuminated properly. You can take a look at this picture of Laura to see an example. In this shot the flash also helped me to even out the harsh sun light on the right side of her face.

Don’t forget that flash can act as an excellent catch light. Notice the shine in a subject’s eye. This catch light is a sign of a good shot. It adds dimension and that “wow” factor we’re all looking to capture.

Well, these are a only a few of the many benefits of flash. Go whip out the flash unit and start experimenting. Cheers.

If this article was helpful to you please comment, it’s my only compensation!

Thanks.

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1 Comments

1. Scott Nichols January 8, 2008

   Hey Aaron, great comments and guidance on the flash! I wish I had figured out the digital camera light settings long ago!

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