There are lots of ways to light a person for a portrait shoot. Light can come in many forms and none so portable than the flash. There is a trick to using flash. The trick is knowing about the colour of the flash, the output, proximity to your person and shadows.
There are many flash photography techniques you can use. In order to get beautiful photos with the flash you need to understand a couple of things about the flash and how flash photography works. These key things are the following:
Intensity (Brightness): The flash is pretty intense. It shoots out a short burst of intense light. This is called “output”. The final quality of your images depends greatly on the output of the flash. In other words the more intense or bright the light is the more it dilutes colour, washes out skin tones and can create high contrast.
Direction: The direction of your flash can make or completely break your portrait photo. If you use the flash at an angle, too close, then you create a high level of contrast. For portraits this may or may not work. As a result of firing the flash front-on you may just see shadows under the person’s nose, chin and cheeks. You may see the dark shadow of their body on the wall behind them.
Outdoor flash photography: The reason why we use flash outdoors is to employ a technique called fill flash. Some people call it flash fill. Whatever you call it, just know that it has a special purpose. It only has one purpose and this is it: to fill in shadows.
Using fill flash can put the right amount of light on someone’s face so that shadows are not as present. To do this you need a soft output. You need to be standing at just the right distance away where the flash is not too bright that will diminish colour from their face. What is the right distance? The more intense the flash output is, the further away you can stand. The less intense the output the closer you can stand.
The key to using flash in portrait photography is to create soft light. Portrait photography looks great when the light is soft. This is evident in wedding photography. The last thing we want to do is fire the flash up close in a brides face. Firstly people hate the flash in their eyes, and, secondly, it can ruin the photos.
Bouncing the flash: A great technique you can use is to swivel the flash head to the ceiling. When you take the photo a lovely burst of light from the flash will hit the ceiling at a high intensity. It will then bounce off the ceiling. The reflected flash light from the ceiling creates a lovely soft light over your portrait. It’s a much nicer effect and such an easy technique. You can really only do this if you have an external flash.
On-camera flash techniques for wedding and portrait photography: If you only have an on-camera flash then try turning your output down to the lowest setting. In other words it’s better to try and fire a soft burst of light rather than an intense burst of light. Make sure you do not stand too close to the person. Fire off a few practice photos first with something around the house to see the effects of the output and distance.
Keep practicing with the flash. These flash techniques are easy to do and will become second nature the more experience you get. They are a lot of fun and you can create some beautiful results with them.
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