Wednesday Wisdom - Lighting

LIGHTING So it is that big day - the one you have been waiting for. The weather is perfect! Not a cloud in the sky and the big event is planned for right in the middle of the day. How could life get any better?!

So many people think that this is the perfect scenario for pictures. Not so. The perfect scenario would to be wake up to a slightly overcast day with a slight skiffing of clouds. No rain per se, just enough clouds to diffuse that harsh sunlight.

So last week we talked about when you should turn off your flash. This week I promised I would talk about when you should turn your flash ON. I need to preface this, however, by talking about lighting in any situation. If you can, instead of taking your subject out into bright, open sunlight (which brings on harsh shadows and hollow-looking eyes) try moving them into soft shadows, right at the edge of a tree or building shadow so as to get even lighting. Try not to get splotchy lighting with the sun coming through the branches making "angle kisses" on your subject's faces.

However, if this is not possible you might think that you should place your subject with their back to the light. This can work if you are trying to get a nice backlit effect or even silhouette shot of your subject(s).

If, however, you would like to actually see this same situation and view their faces you would need to turn on your flash and shoot (this is called fill flash on your camera). In technical terms, the camera is metering off the sky and therefore turns everything in the foreground black in order to make the sky look "right". By forcing your flash to go off it will brighten up your subject and keep the sky looking correctly exposed. Take a look at these two photos I took outside of my home (Ashley wouldn't pose for me - and I quote, "Mom, I look like dirt!" so you get flowers, sorry).

Notice how the face of this flower is dark. Magnify this x 3 when you are actually shooting faces. All the nooks and crannies in a face tend to really leave behind shadows.

Here I turned on the flash and it really brightened up the face of this flower. Notice the difference.

So go ahead, turn that flash on in the middle of the day, even when you are outside so as to brighten up any extremely dark spots in your pictures you might want to look lighter. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. I am always happy to help. Also, if you have anything you would like covered, let me know.