Hopefully, you enjoyed the first part of this guest post on flash photography. Now it’s time for the last part, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy as well!

Lesson #6: Flashes are good at light, but great at creating shadows

Even though I was concerned with removing shadows in the last lesson, it’s important to remember that sometimes shadows can look cool.

Signs of life, by Jo Christian Oterhals on Flickr

I had noticed this little flower that was growing in the most unlikely of places, and knew that I had to photograph it. But the day I had time, the light was dull and grey and absolutely shadowless. It just didn’t look good. So what I did was that I placed a flash off camera, a few meters to the right of the flower. I didn’t use any softening devices at all; this was all direct flash.

The small blip of flash made the flower cast a nice shadow. In addition the flash added some color to the scene, so that what really was a gray day looked like a sunny afternoon.

Conscious use of shadows can be used with great success and effect when photographing people. Sometimes it elevates a scene from mundane to great. This nude photo by the Flickr user sneaks85 is a great example:

nude, by sneaks85; on Flickr

The light is great of course, but it’s the shadows that accentuates the model’s body and curves. So be aware of shadows: Shadowless lighting is not an ideal in itself. It can be, but surprisingly often it’s not.

Lesson #7: Sometimes light should come from behind

We’re so accustomed to seeing subjects lit from the front, that merely placing the light behind the subject you’ll create a more «edgy» look. Not only that, but sometimes you should think more about lighting little than much.

Don’t give up, by Jo Christian Oterhals on Flickr

In this case I just wanted to light the rim of the faces, so both models here hand-holds one flash each. They hold them just below the edge of the frame and tilts them a little upwards. The flame is caused by stray light from one of the flashes.

Even though in one of the lessons above I say that you should mix available light and flash light when you can, in this particular case I wanted to remove all available light. So the combination of a small aperture and high shutter speed rendered the parts that are not flash lit black. It was really only the edge of the faces that were lit (often referred to as edge lighting).

Eve and Adam 2009, by Jo Christian Oterhals on Flickr

This another example using the same technique, but with a twist: I keep enough available light to render the bodies somewhat, but an overexposed background creates a high-contrast silhouette look.

Lesson #8: Light can be colored

Flash light is white or neutral. The great thing about white light is that it can be colored. Wrap a sheet of colored plastic over the flash head, and you suddenly have a colored light.

Doing the dishes, Tron style, by Jo Christian Oterhals on Flickr

This can be used a lot of ways. One obvious way is to color whatever it is you’re trying to photograph. In this photo I’ve placed a blue plastic gel over the flash. The scene is as ordinary as running water from a tap, but the blue light gives the water an unreal, almost metallic look.

Lesson #9: Go manual

After dabbling with flash photography for a while, you’ll see that when the computer inside your camera makes every decision for you, the results will be pretty average. The computer will always try to expose perfectly, and a perfect result in a computer’s mind is a photo that includes as much tonality between totally white and completely blown-out as possible.

The strange thing is that the world is seldom as average as this. Now’s the time to take charge. Start with exposure compensation. Just as your camera has exposure compensation functions for letting in more or less light than what your camera has chosen for you, the flash will probably have the same possibility. So try to output more or less light from the flash using flash exposure compensation. Learn when your flash/camera combo makes good decisions for you, and when they don’t. You’ll soon see that you’ll get better photos once you’ve mastered this.

Halo, by Drippy2009; on Flickr

For many this will be enough fiddling around, but for those of you who want to take it a step further: Go manual. There are several reasons for going manual, one of them can be if you are using one of the eBay radio trigger sets. Then you have no choice but to go manual. But manual is also an option if your TTL/automatic system gets fooled by sudden changes in ambient light. With manual settings you’re ensured that flash output stays identical from exposure to exposure.

Manual control of flash is hard to grasp at first, because it involves some head calculations. But when you get the grip on it, you’ve got more control than ever. Flashes providing manual control gives you the opportunity to tell it to blast at 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc., of full power. Some flashes let you reduce as much as 1/128. The lower the power, the faster the flash will recharge. An unexpected but cool side effect of lowering output power, is that the time the flash is actually lit shortens. Imagine photographing droplets: The shorter time the flash lights, the more frozen the drop will be.

Final lesson: Experiment! Sometimes wrong is right!

This may be the most important lesson. Sometimes wrong is right. Experiment with output, with reflecting light off wrong-colored surfaces, overexpose, underexpose; be amazed by how things did not turn out like you thought (and make notes when these wrongs actually looks good).

As I’ve shown above, with flash you can: turn dull days in to colorful days; freeze droplets; make bodies more interesting; simulate movement.

In short: Experiment. Flash photography is fun!

If you liked this post, you may also like:

1. 10 tips to get you started with flash photography, part 1
2. 9 tips to make this year’s Christmas photos better than last year’s

Used to the mediocre output of the built-in flash, lots of photographers dismiss using flash for lighting altogether. But if you upgrade to an external unit and you use it when and where it’s really useful, you’ll be able to achieve results you wouldn’t have otherwise.

These are the first 5 tips on this topic. The other 5 will be published in another article in a couple of days. So stay tuned!

High Speed Photography, by phatmax95 on Flickr

Days are (on the northern hemisphere at least) still dark. This means that for most amateur photographers, daylight’s gone by the time they’ve got a few minutes to spare for photography. If you’ve ever thought about venturing into flash photography, there’s probably no better time than right now.

But there are many myths concerning this, the two biggest being that flash light is always ugly and the second that it’s difficult to do right. This keeps many from using it. Personally I don’t find it particularly hard, neither do I find flash light particularly ugly.

Below you’ll find a few lessons that I personally find useful.

Lesson #1: If a built-in flash is all you have, use it

Although most of the lessons here will tell you that light looks best off-camera, sometimes on-camera flash is all you have. You may not get photos sutiable for publishing in fashion magazines this way, but at least you’ll get photos that are better than they could have been.

This sensational photo by Flickr user kittenmoon proves my point:

Shopping for dinner.., by kittenmoon on Flickr

A self portrait in front of a fantastic sunset made possible by a small P&S and a kiss of light from the built-in flash. Without the built-in flash, this would have been a photo of a silhoutte in front of a beautiful sunset. But with it, the photographer’s got a smashing self-portrait. In short, this may be one of the best examples that you should use whatever light you have with you.

The built-in flash can help you get rid of harsh shadows when photographing outdoors and in daylight, combined with high ISO it can help you get nicer indoor pictures, etc. You probably have a built-in flash. Use it.

Lesson #2: Equipment matters

Some people claim that great equipment doesn’t make great photographs. Up to a point they’re right. But when it comes to flash there’s still a minimum of equipment needed. At least you’ll need a flash, and regardless of what I said in lesson #1, you should preferably invest in an external unit.

If you don’t have one, now’s the time to buy. Go for an external flash with as much output power as you can afford. Preferably you should buy one that has a head that can be tilted and rotated. Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, etc., all produce flashes for their systems, but there are also lots of third-party vendors of flashes for your camera. This means that you have lots of options, and you’ll always be able to find something that suits your budget.

If you can, get one that can be triggered by your camera even when it’s off camera. Although most camera makers now have this facility built-in, some SLR models needs a second flash or a special triggering device to achieve this (most notably the Canon EOS series). If you’re on a tight budget, you can opt for radio triggers instead. They can be found on eBay for less than $50.

You’ll probably have to operate your flashes manually with these, but doing that is actually easier than it sounds at first. Personally, I use the triggers on the photo for just about anything now (click photo to see them on eBay). This kit may not suit you, but for me it does the job.

Lesson #3: Mix available light and flash when possible

If you normally shoot your photos using P or «green square», try flipping the command dial over to aperture priority.

Spread em, by Benny Vision on Flickr

On the fully automatic modes, the camera will normally shoot at your cameras flash sync speed – usually somewhere around 1/125 to 1/250 depending on what camera you have. It will completely disregard what shutter speed it should have chosen to expose the ambient light correctly.

Sometimes you may want to remove available light altogether, but in all I think those situations are fewer than the opposite. They do exist, however. See Lesson #7 for an example.

Lesson #4: Use second curtain flash sync

When mixing ambient light and flash, you’ll sometimes experience that shutter speeds drop too low to render everything sharp.

No need to panic, though. The flash will help freeze your subject and render it sharp or semi-sharp. The downside is if your subject moves. Then you’ll see «ghosting» or «speed trails».

This can look good, however, if your camera is able to synchronize flash to second shutter curtain (also called “rear curtain”), i.e fire the flash when the shutter’s closing instead of when it opens. With this function enabled, the frozen, sharp version of your subject will come after the ghosting has occured. The ghost effect will then look like speed trails and give you a natural sense of speed and direction.

Boom, by keithpyt on Flickr

Looking at the image I’ve used to exemplify this, taken by Flickr user keithpyt, you’ll see a great use of slow shutter speed and second curtain sync. The biker is nice and sharp, and the trails give you a feeling of speed. Had the photographer not used second curtain flash sync, however, it would have looked as if the biker flew backwards. The result is in this case a great photo.

So use second curtain sync as often as possible. You should probably leave your flash on second curtain sync all the time. (If you use a radio trigger set like the one I mentioned above, you may experience that second shutter sync is impossible)

Lesson #5: Light looks best when it come from anywhere else but the camera

You’ve seen it outdoors: Light almost never comes directly from behind your back. As long as you just have a built-in flash you don’t have much choice in the matter. But if you also own an external flash: Why insist that flash light should come from your forehead?

Direct flash will create harsh light and shadows, that more often than not is unflattering for your subject. If your subjects are close to a wall, deep shadows will dominate the background. And in dark rooms they’ll get the dreaded red eyes. In short: Unless that’s the effect you’re going for, avoid direct flash.

The solution is to get the light to come in from somewhere else but the top of your camera. What’s great is that you can do this without taking the flash off your camera. If you’ve got the rotatable and tiltable kind of flash you’ve got plenty of possibility to bounce light of walls, ceilings, etc. The ability to bounce will alone open a world of possibilities for creating more subdued indirect light effects.

Portrait before Christmas, by Jo Christian Oterhals on Flickr

In this example I’ve fixed a flash on my camera. I’ve rotated the head 180 degrees and tilted it a little upwards, so that it actually fires partly into the ceiling and a wall behind me. A nice side effect of this technique is that it creates a soft, nice shadowless light, almost like a large softbox. No deep shadows in the face here, and none in the background. A great side effect is nice and large catchlights in his eyes.

One shortcoming of this technique is that the walls should be white or as close to white as possible. If they’re not, the reflected light will have added some of the color of the surface it reflects from. Unless you’re converting your images to black and white later on, this is something you’ll have to be aware of.

If you’ve got the kind of flash that can be remotely controlled by your camera, this problem can be avoided by placing the flash off camera somewhere to the left or right of the subject.

End of part 1. Check out part 2 next week!

If you liked this post, you may also like:

1. 10 tips to get you started with flash photography, part 2
2. 9 tips to make this year’s Christmas photos better than last year’s
3. Take pictures in aperture-priority mode

365 days, 365 photos.

Think about it for a minute. It sounds easy doesn’t it? I mean, it only takes a minute or so every day, and you’re done, right?

#TwPhCh is Scary! (#222/365), by Christian Mohn

How I got my 365 project started

I decided, in the spur of the moment, to start my own 365 project on the 1^st of January 2009. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought it through nor really considered what was involved or how much work it really was. Perhaps that’s why I also managed to pull it off, the distinct lack of planning and complete spontaneity that triggered it. I gave myself little or no restrictions, only that I would shoot at least one photograph each day for the whole of 2009. I did not limit myself to a specific theme or technique, the main idea was to force myself into getting somewhat creative with my photography.

For me, the intention was two-fold;

1. Become a better photographer
2. Be creative

The basic idea was that if you repeat something often enough, you will get better at it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The thing is, it sounds easy but as the days go by, you suddenly realize that you might be running out of ideas and inspiration. After all, most of us don’t lead spectacular lives with lots of traveling and new places to explore every day. Some days are just that, days that has no particular meaning nor did anything special happen. In my opinion, those are the days that are really interesting, at least when it comes to this project. It’s easy to document exciting things, family events and other “big” events that happen in our lives.

The normal, somewhat mundane, day is a different matter all together. These are the days that challenge you, almost dare you to do something creative and think outside the box.

Take Me to Your Leader (#48/365), by Christian Mohn

The important thing to remember is this; Don’t Stop! There will be times you want to give up. There will be times that you think that there is nothing left to take a photo of, but you are wrong. There is always a great photo right in front of you, just waiting for you to see it and capture it.

4 tips for a successful 365 project

1. Don’t forget your camera

   Bring your camera with you. Self explanatory, but important none the less. If you don’t bring your camera with you, how are you supposed to be able to photograph anything? Turn it into a habit. Take it with you everywhere, no trip is too small. There are photo-ops everywhere, and I mean, everywhere.

2. Be public

   Be very public about your project. Let people know, and even better get more people involved. Chances are that if you team up with others, publicly announce the project and otherwise market it in a way that people notice, you are more likely to actually be able to pull it off. After all, it’s much easier to give up of no-one knows you even started, right? You can even turn it into a competition if you like, all just to make sure you get the proper incentive to keep on shooting. Also, you do want people to see your photos, don’t you?

3. Publish as soon as you can

   Try to post your images online as soon as possible. I generally tried to post the photos the same day they were taken, but sometimes that’s just not possible. You might be traveling without online access, and that’s fine. If you can’t publish for a day or two, don’t worry. Just make sure you have taken the shots, and upload them as soon as you can. If you wait too long, your backlog will come back and bite you and perhaps even overwhelm you, and you don’t want that. Make sure you have an easy method of posting the images too, either to Flickr or some other service. The most important thing is that it should be quick and easy to get your photos published.

4. Play, learn and have fun

   This might be, besides having your camera with you at all times, the best tip I have to offer. Have fun! Play! Learn! Don’t be afraid to try out something new, and don’t be afraid of posting a less than perfect picture. This project should be all about enjoying photography and learning how to master your camera.

Tunnel Vision (#301/365), by Christian Mohn

What did I get out of it?

For one, I’ve proven that my interest for photography is genuine. Pushing through this project has solidified it as something I’m really interested in continuing to invest time and resources to. In fact, this project was pretty much the driving force behind replacing my old, and somewhat beat-up, Canon 350D camera and replace it with a shiny new Canon 50D.

Secondly, I’ve proven to myself that I can persevere and undertake ambitious projects. Sure, there were times I was certain that I wouldn’t, but in the end I’m very glad I did.

Has it made me a better photographer? I think it has, but you can judge that by going through my Project 365 on Flickr.

Editor’s choice

Thank you for an interesting article, Christian! These 5 photos are my favorites from your 365 Days project:

Everyday Attrition

Ghouls in my Coffee

Blue (Wants to be Real)

Plant of Color

Art Imitates Life

If you liked this post, you may also like:

1. Explore yourself with a self-portrait project on Flickr

Others share my thoughts. Therefore, someone started the group “52 weeks“; a project where you shoot and post one self-portrait every WEEK instead.

Missing you, by Marius Waldal

Even this requires a great deal of self-discipline, but it is achievable (for me). And there is another reason I prefer this: I imagine the quality of the portraits will be higher, as you have more time to plan and execute them.

One of the beauties of self-portraiture is that you always have a model at the ready! And you don’t need to feel self-confident when asking your model to perform certain tasks or acquire certain postures (at least if nobody’s watching!).

Doing self-portraits will teach you loads about portraiture and probably a few things about yourself as well. Also, I found it quite interesting to brainstorm ideas for self-portraits. Some of them will likely not be implemented, but some of them I’m really looking forward to try out!

Abandoned, by Marius Waldal

8 tips for a successful 52 Weeks project

1. Brainstorm ideas – Before you start, brainstorm ideas for types of portraits you can shoot. I myself have jotted down more than 20 achievable ideas up front.

2. Save ideas for a rainy day – Sort out 3-5 easy-to-accomplish ideas and put them away. You save these for upcoming weeks where you will either have little time to do something fancy, or little motivation. This will increase you chances of actually succeeding. Because if you fail one week, you have lowered the bar for allowing yourself to fail again. And if you do, you might lose motivation completely and throw in the towel. And you won’t be happy about it.

3. Get a smooth start – Sort out another easy-to-accomplish idea and choose this as your first-week portrait! When you begin such a project, your motivation is high. Getting a good start will solidify this motivation, while a poor start can be a killer.

4. Get moral support – If you’re already on flickr, talk to some of your contacts and tell them about your upcoming project. Explain that you are a little anxious about the whole thing and that you need their support! If they are good at encouraging you in the beginning, your confidence will build much more quickly!

5. Be active on the 52 Weeks flickr group! – Be generous with comments on other photographers’ self-portraits. You can get some tips on how to do photo critiques in this article, but as a general advice I recommend being less critical on peoples’ self-portraits than on their other photos.

6. Collect ideas from other participants – As you browse the group, write down ideas you get when seeing what others have done. Try to make your own twist on the idea. Just copying an idea from another is also ok, but it is polite to write in your description that you were inspired by another user and include a link to that photo.

7. Keep brainstorming – Every other month, sit down and brainstorm for new ideas. Don’t be picky. Any idea is fine at this stage. Even ideas that seem far out may trigger other great ideas later on.

8. From ideas to plans – Every week, spend some time going through your ideas from tip #7 and see if you can mold some of them into real assignments that you can use in your project.

I will do this project now! Will you?

February 1st 2010, week 5, I will begin my 52 Weeks project! I look forward to it, and I will be writing something about it here as well.

How about joining 52 Weeks yourself? You know you want to…

Have you done this already? Are you doing it now? Great! I would love to hear what you think!

If you liked this post, you may also like:

1. Why I did a 365 project, and why you should too!
2. 20 inspiring examples of monochrome portrait photography
3. 3 things Flickr needs to become a kick-ass service

Christmas Shopping HBW, by Photocillin on Flickr

Watch the background

Christmas time is decoration time. Often loads of it. This is of course an important part of creating the right Christmas mood (good), but it can also generate very fuzzy backgrounds for your photos (bad). Be sure to take your background into account when shooting, to avoid elements in your background that takes too much attention from your subject.

Move closer to your subjects

If the background is fuzzy, consider moving closer to your subject. More often than not, a photo will improve by removing the surroundings and filling the frame with your subject(s).

Christmas-time is bokeh-time

Day 4, by Phil Peck on Flickr

Don’t take only posed photos

When you look at Christmas photos, they often include people looking straight into the camera (“Say cheeeeeeese!”). In gatherings like these, I usually prefer that people are not posing, as this often looks unnatural. I want my photos to capture the mood as it was, not how it was staged. Candid shots are great. Capture the intense glee the kids show, instead of the unreal calmness when they are posing.

Use a tele for kids

Speaking of kids. They have an uncanny ability to notice that someone is taking their picture (“Can I see, can I?”), so why not try and make it more difficult for them? If there is sufficient light, try using a tele lens so that you can get more distance to the kids and perhaps get some really nice shots of them playing.

Get down on children-level

Let’s not leave the kids just yet (after all; they are the most important part of Christmas, right?). Too many photos of kids are taken downwards. Get down to their level. This perspective is a lot more pleasant and interesting. Or even better; get lower! Photos of kids taken from below creates an unusual perspective that will add an interesting twist to your photos.

Cross-process some of your photos

Unique, by pixelprints on Flickr

Try to avoid flash

If you own one (or can borrow), go for a fast lens like a 50mm 1.4 or 1.8. This will enable you to take a lot of your photos without flash. If you use the built-in flash, most photos will have hard shadows and unnatural lighting. And a quality flash won’t help you much if it isn’t used right. To capture the warm, cosy Christmas mood, it is better to shoot without a flash. A fast lens (and a little higher ISO) is your friend!

Capture the details

As I said earlier, Christmas is very much about decoration. Which means details details details. Many of these details can be interesting subjects if you use your creative vision. Photos of details will add a nice touch to your Christmas photo album (you do print some of your photos, right? They don’t all just stay on your hard drive…?). Well, they look great in digital albums as well, of course

I hope these tips will help you take better photos this year! Do you have some tips on your own? Please share them with us! And if you’ve taken Christmas photos that you are particularly satisfied with, do share them in the comments section.

I wish you all a wonderful Christmas!

If you liked this post, you may also like:

1. 10 tips to get you started with flash photography, part 1
2. 10 tips to get you started with flash photography, part 2
3. Wedding photography: How to capture the mood of the celebration