THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EYE

amount of control over everyday
lighting situations.
Controlled Lighting: But what
about the non-everyday situations?
Perhaps you need to shoot indoors or
at night. You will then have to rely
on your flash as the primary or sole
light source. This is a good deal more
difficult than flash fill.
While you can get good fill results
with virtually any flash, controlled
lighting pretty well requires a flash
with an adjustable head. At the very
least, it should swivel sideways.
Ideally it will swivel up and down as
well. In addition, a flash equipped
with its own light meter (which tells
it when to stop firing) will produce
far more consistent results with far
less hassle than one that you must
control manually. But, here again,
make do with what you have.
The first rule for controlled
lighting with a flash is never point the
flash directly at your subject. There
are, of course, exceptions to this
rule ... but not many. Direct flash
tends to produce stark and unpleasantly
artificial lighting. Instead,
try to bounce the flash's light off
something, which will soften it and
spread it around more naturally.
Indoors, the ceiling often works
perfectly for this purpose, if it is
fairly low and light in color. Angle
your flash head (assuming it is adjustable)
so its light will shoot up to
the ceiling and bounce down right on
the primary subject of your photograph.
If your angle is too low, the
light will end up behind the subject.
If it's too high, it will light a little pool
at your subject's feet.
If you don't have access to a nice
white ceiling (or even if you do), you
can steal a trick from photojournalists:
the white card. Any card
will do; a standard 3x5 note card is
Attaching a white card enhances the effectiveness of "bouncing" the flash off
a ceiling indoors.
very commonly used.
Wrap a rubber band around the
flash head and slip the card in under
it, with most of the card sticking out
beyond the head. Angle the flash so
it is aimed above the subject (bouncing
off the ceiling if possible). As
most of the light from the flash
shoots upwards, part of it will be
reflected from the white card directly
into the subject. The light that hits
the ceiling will help to illuminate the
surrounding space. With luck and
skill, you can produce very adequate
and natural lighting with this technique,
indoors or out. (Look closely
at the next press conference you see
on TV and you're certain to spot a
few photographers using this trick.)
You can often find or concoct
other reflecting surfaces as well: a
white wall, a window (which can
reflect light from the inside as well as
let it in from the outside), a large
sheet of white paper or mat board,
etc. Keep your eyes open and you'll
generally find what you need.
Shooting for Publication
If you hope to have some of your
photographs published (don't we
all?), you'll have a head start if you're
familiar with some basic guidelines.
First of all, it is a very good idea
to obtain releases from everyone you
photograph. It is required for virtually
all journalistic photography. A
release is a signed contract giving you
permission to use a person's photograph
in certain ways. If you have a
photograph published without a
release, there's always a chance you'll
be sued for invasion of privacy,
misusing a person's image or causing
them some kind of damage (financial,
emotional, etc.). Here's a sample
release:
Advanced Techniques 269