EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FLASH

Master the art of professional flash photography, both indoors and outdoors

Alistair Campbell

As the Technique Editor for our sister magazine Digital Camera, Alistair writes about a broad range of photographic genres. For this feature he has kindly put aside some time to discuss the benefits of using gels and also gives some tips for controlling ambient light with an artificial source. digitalcameraworld.com

Rory Lewis

Renowned for his oil painting-inspired lighting style Rory is an expert in controlling flash and shaping light to bring out drama and detail. This makes him the perfect tutor in how to use flash modifiers to direct light to the key areas of the subject and scene. Read his step-by-step tutorial over on p46. rorylewis.studio

Flash is a tricky aspect of photography to learn. If used incorrectly, the artificial light can spoil the ambience of an image, introduce harsh shadows and highlights and bring out unwanted textures. It can also create unnatural colour casts, draining the life and energy from the subject of an image. For these reasons, newcomers to photography decide quite quickly that flash should be avoided, except as a last resort.

The truth is quite the opposite. In many circumstances, flash can transform an image into something magical, vastly increasing the contrast, depth and colour fidelity.

Without flash, the photographer is reliant on natural light, which can be difficult to control. It is not possible to adjust the colour temperature and intensity of sunlight, we don't have the freedom to reposition the light source, nor the direction and angle of the shadows as they fall across our subject.