Short post… just wanted to point out a great post by Joe McNally on his blog.  The article covers two techniques I find really creative and actually not difficult to pull off.

One is zooming a flash to a narrow beam (he uses the new SB900 flash but you can achieve this with any flash and a home-made “snoot” [a tube to narrow the beam of your flash]) so that you get a splash of light on the torso and head of a model in an otherwise dim scene.  The other is the idea of throwing a beat up wooden crate in front of the flash to create dramatic shadows for an environmental portrait.  Looks like a million bucks, and it’s not exactly rocket science.

Which reminds me; great photos aren’t found, they are created.  Whether that means complicated studio flash setups or simply waiting for the sun to go down and using a bit of fill -it’s the fact that great light (and thus great photos) doesn’t just “happen.”  (ok, once in a while it does, but that’s luck not skill)  The effort is in creating (or waiting for) just the right light.

I’m definitely guilty of just “pretending” the light is right.  I think a lot of amateur photographers put little effort into the light.  It can be the pressure of friends and family to get on with the day’s activities, or a lack of thought when placing / diffusing flash.  In any case, we have to remember that good light does take some effort and patience.  That’s why I think it’s so cool that pros like Joe post simple techniques like I mentioned above that anyone can pull off.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 11:08 pm and is filed under Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.