FAQ for Photographers: To Flash or Not to Flash: Part 2

In yesterday’s post, I began a discussion about how I use the light sources I am given in any situation to take my images in the direction I want them to go in. A lot of times, that means making a call on whether or not to use my flash, and if I do use it, how I choose to use it. Now, in Part 1, I didn’t use flash for any of the images, but instead talked about how I changed my settings and positioned my subjects to accommodate the different lighting scenarios. I feel like I should explain more about why I chose not to use my flash. This is sort of my philosophy: I really only want to use flash for creative purposes (i.e. funky off-camera lighting, light painting, backlighting dance floor shots, etc.) OR out of absolute necessity, to get a “safe shot.” Therefore, the only times during a wedding when I’m actually using the flash would be for creative portraiture, or as a safety net when I’m shooting a dark ceremony and/or reception space. And even in the latter case, I don’t always use my flash, which I’ll get to here in a minute. So for all those candids I was capturing, I wanted the images to look realistic and to represent moments exactly as people would remember them in their minds. And believe it or not, most people’s memories don’t involve flash. They remember things with all their imperfections- with florescent lighting or moody darkness or colorful stage lights or dreary skies or whatever the case may be. So with that in mind, I tend to avoid using my flash. Even if it means skin might have a color cast to it, or there are some shadows here and there. One of my goals, particularly when it comes to weddings, is to keep my images as true as possible to what the naked eye sees (with a little creative post-processing flair, of course! ;) ). When I do use my flash, I either do it completely off-camera, or I point it in a direction other than directly at the subject, in order to create “bounced light,” which tends to have more dimension and softness.

So with that it mind, let’s move on to the second half of the images I wanted to share from Crystal and Luke’s wedding. Below, these two photos of my friend Carrie were taken without flash. Because Carrie has such that sultry Marilyn Monroe thing going on, I took her and her beer into the restaurant portion of the venue, where there was some warm, moody, overhead lighting. For the photo on the left, I had her point her chin up a little to get rid of those pesky shadows over her eyes. As a result, I think the ambient light works really well. Very dramatic. And I like that it’s warmer than a flash would’ve been. For the photo on the right, I wasn’t directing Carrie. She was talking to Ethan, who was standing over to the side, and I liked the candidness of the moment (and those little dimples forming on her cheeks as she was half-smiling!). So yes, there are some semi-harsh shadows. But again, I think for the drama of the look, it works. As a bonus, because I was shooting wide open and had my shutter speed as slow as I felt comfortable with, and because I repositioned myself slightly, I was able to get even MORE ambient light, in the form of those beautiful light blobs (bokeh) in the background. So, a slightly different shot, but same dramatic effect.

When it came time for the ceremony, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sweating bullets a little bit (okay, a LOT). It was sort of a do or die situation. Because the room doubles as a music venue, it is really dark, and the only lighting was pink and purple and blue and on the stage. Oh, and the aisle was pretty short, so there wasn’t any room for error. To flash or not to flash? That was the question. So here’s what I did. I had my second shooter Ethan stay positioned at the end of the aisle for the entire ceremony, so that I could be certain he would get all the necessary shots, while I moved around some and tried to see if there were any better angles. I also went ahead and put my flash on my camera, ready to be turned on at any moment if I couldn’t make the shot work without it. I set all my settings to expose properly without flash, so that when I did need it, I could just flip the on switch and the camera would automatically adjust the power of the flash to fill in what I needed it to. Another reason I wasn’t stoked on the idea of using flash at all during the ceremony (aside from the fact that I find it completely distracting to everyone else, and I already feel really self-conscious about calling too much attention to myself during such a sacred moment) was that I prefer to bounce my flash, but the ceilings were high and black as the night sky. Not an ideal surface to bounce light off of. So while I did use my flash for the processional and recessional, for fear of not getting the “safe shots,” I much prefer the shots that Ethan got with no flash, as illustrated below. Sure, he had to crank the ISO all the way up to 1600 (and on a 40D at that, which isn’t quite as equipped to handle those high ISOs). Sure, there is a purple glow over everyone’s faces, which is almost reminiscent of the “Violet, you’re turning violet!” scene in the old Willy Wonka movie, in which they clearly made Violet turn violet by shining increasing bright lights on her face. However, this is how everyone in that room will remember this moment. It was dark, and there were purple lights. And honestly, besides the fact that it looks more true to what the naked eye was seeing, I just think it looks pretty darn cool.

So here, you can see a bit of a contrast between what a shot looked like when I fired the flash, and what it looked like when I didn’t. The one on the left? It’s a safe shot. Luke’s face is evenly lit, and he has a nice, happy expression. But the shot on the right? I was on the exact same settings, but because I turned the flash off after I got the safe shot, I got this. This much more dramatic, dimensional, and in my opinion, interesting image. I love that the contrast of the light coming from the stage highlights every nuance in his expression. And I chose to make it even more striking by doing a black and white conversion, to keep the focus on that priceless look on his face.

Here’s another example of why I didn’t use the flash during the ceremony. I just love this.

Again, no flash. I just wanted to show that because of all the ambient purple, blue, and yellow lighting, I chose to play it up by running a couple of my fave actions on low opacity: Get Faded (Winter) from TRA and Memory of a Friend from Jesh de Rox.

Okay, so here’s an example of an instance when I needed an extra light source, but I didn’t use my flash. I always carry a few Sunpak Readylites with me. They’re these brilliant little flashlights that pack a powerful punch. I first saw them in action in a seminar with John Michael Cooper and I thought they were genius. Here’s why I like them: For one, they’re cheap. $25 a pop. Not bad at all. For two, they’re a continuous light source, meaning I can adjust my settings while the light is shining so there’s no guesswork and fumbling around to properly adjust my off-camera flash. For three, they provide a warm (and to me, more natural) light, versus the cool white light of a flash. Now, on the downside, the life of the battery is only about 15 minutes, and it takes 4 hours to recharge, so you have to conserve the power and wait to turn them on until literally the moment you need them. But since I always carry three of them, I haven’t run into a situation when I’ve run out of power and not been able to use them. So in the shot below, I had Ethan stand to the right of me and hold it slightly above the cake, aiming down. The angle, once again, creates interesting shadows and dimension, and for some reason, I just love this shot. I think it has something to do with this elegant white wedding cake against the backdrop of a cracked and stained concrete wall. But I digress.

Below, I used my flash for both shots, but just bounced it from different angles. I prefer the shot on the right because it’s MUCH more dimensional.

So, obviously, I didn’t want to shoot the entire first dance with flash. But one thing I love about dancing shots is playing with my shutter speed, slowing it down (sometimes wayyyy down) to get some motion blur. Because in my opinion, pictures of people moving around should convey that. I want there to be energy and life in those kinds of photos, so it’s one of the times that turning off the flash (which freezes motion) and slowing down the shutter speed is really beneficial. Like this:

For the rest of the reception photos, I alternated between flash and no flash. One instance when I pretty much always use flash is when people stop to pose for a photo. I just feel like those are the kinds that should be sharp, evenly-lit, and relatively “safe.” So in the image below, I bounced my flash at the ceiling (while having that little plastic flap thing raised up to also bounce some light directly at them. As you can see, I’m very technical.) But, I have to say I actually like flash in this instance because of the way I had my settings. By keeping my shutter speed pretty slow, I allowed all of that lovely golden ambient light to wrap around them and highlight their hair. Had I been shooting at, say, 1/500 of a second, the flash still would’ve lit them properly, but then it would have abruptly dropped off and left the background completely black, which would have made this look like just an ordinary snapshot. Not nearly as interesting. But this? I like.

Many times, at receptions, I will set up an off-camera flash on a light stand to provide nice, dimensional side or back lighting. To see examples of this, see Lindsay and Michael’s wedding and Susan and Lane’s wedding. In those cases, I set up my Lumopro flash [which is strictly manual, and pretty cheap-- good for off-camera use] on a light stand, set the power to 1/32, and attach a Pocketwizard. Then I keep my main flash on camera, attach the other Pocketwizard via a sync cord to my camera [and if I'm not using a flash on my camera, I can just attach it via hotshoe, which is nice], and then I straight up ghetto rubberband the Pocketwizard to the flash to hold it on. So in those situations, I’ve got light coming from my main camera, which is often bounced, as well as directional/back/rim lighting coming from the off-camera flash. When I want to play around artistically, I typically turn my on-camera flash off and move around to play with that off-camera light, either by getting really cool, contrasty shadows, colorful flare, or silhouettes where the subjects are completely dark, but are rim-lit by the flash behind them. One of my goals this year is to invest in another off-camera light set-up (with flash, PW, and stand) so that I can have two set up opposite each other and not have to use any on-camera flash at all. We’ll see how that goes. One thing to remember when you’re using that off-camera light, and just in general if you’re having trouble syncing your flash, is to slow down that shutter speed. It took forever for this whole concept to click for me because I would get so frustrated when I first started using my PWs and flashes. Then I read a golden nugget from Scott Kelby- your shutter speed has to be 1/250th of a second or slower to be able to sync the flash. Since then, I’ve discovered that I like to keep my shutter speed at 1/60th of a second or slower when using flash to let in all the ambient light to balance it out (like in the photo above). In any other case, I don’t feel comfortable shooting at those shutter speeds, but the beauty of the flash is that it freezes your subject. And the cool thing about this is that you can play with dragging your shutter and creating sweet light painting and ghosting effects, which can be fun to do for dancing photos.

But for Crystal and Luke’s reception, I was pretty happy with all the accent light coming from the stage and from the rest of the room, which alternated between warm yellows and cool blues and purples. So I decided to just work with what was already there instead of against it. Pretty much all the dancing shots (which were taken right by the stage, where all the purple light was coming from) were taken without flash. And again, I like this because it’s how someone would remember it in their mind. And again, I just think it looks cool. :)

The getaway was another one of those make-a-snap-decision moments. I wanted to convey motion and energy and let all of those lights coming from the restaurant play in the background. But on the other hand, this was one moment where I wanted Crystal and Luke to be in focus and well-lit. The solution? Bump up my aperture a bit for extra insurance on the focusing side of things. Slow down my shutter speed to create motion and to paint with the ambient light in the background. And finally, turn on my flash to light up and freeze Crystal and Luke, as well as the marshmallows that were being tossed at them. Does that make sense? I’m sure I explained it terribly. I guess what I’m saying is that if I had treated this image like I did the one of them dancing (where I also had a very slow shutter speed) by not firing the flash, there would have been too much motion blur and I would have risked not getting them lit and in focus. During the first dance, I had a solid four minutes to play around with different angles and settings to get different looks, but here, I literally had about ten seconds to get it right. So I had to make sure I got it right.

And finally, this shot of them being carried away through Market Square. I basically kept my settings exactly the same, but for whatever reason the flash didn’t fire. However, I guess by some miracle I was holding the camera steady enough to get everything relatively in focus, even shooting at 1/13th of a second. If it hadn’t been for that slow shutter speed, though, I wouldn’t have gotten all that wonderful ambient light from the restaurants and the street lights. So, if I had thought it through before taking it, I would’ve increased my shutter speed and bumped up my ISO quite a bit to compensate. But you know what? I believe in happy accidents, and sometimes the least thought-out images are some of my very favorites.

So, in conclusion, here are my final thoughts on the whole issue of whether or not to use your flash or work with what you’ve got. It seems that the running theme through this whole thing has been that the kind of light I like is natural (in a sense that it’s what the naked eye sees, not necessarily that it’s just sunlight) and dimensional. The thing is, this kind of light can be achieved with or without flash. Honestly, I think a lot of it comes down to personal preference. But I would encourage you, if you’re solely a natural light photographer, to make sure that it is only because you prefer the look and is not just because learning how to creatively use flash to your advantage scares you. Again, like I said, I still have a loooong way to go before I feel like I’ve “mastered” my flashes. But I am willing to keep trying, keep playing with it, keep learning. Because I don’t want to make a choice when it comes to lighting just because I have to, because I don’t know how to do anything else.

I hope that someone out there found this rambler of a post helpful in some way. If you did, please let me know in the comments below! I would love to keep doing posts like this if I feel like other people are getting something out of it. And feel free to email me with other questions or comments you might have! I definitely have a list stored away of FAQ post topics, so I’ll try to cover everything little by little if I can!