I am still trying to experiment with flash, going back to basic really clarifies some great points … I had no willing model, so as I wanted to photograh a person, I choose me – a selfie with a flash … mmm
So first of all I popped my camera on the tripod, choose where I was going to stand – just in front of an off white wall, and worked out where to focus … I then tied a piece of string to my tripod leg and held the other end at my eye, knowing that if I went back to the same point each time I should be in focus. I then set my flash at about 45 degrees to the camera and used a snood – I wanted to be able to control where the light felt for these shots, particularly as the room I was shooting in had a semi transparent roof … there was plenty of soft light.
I set the camera up for the ambient lighting of the room, added the flash as a very low power, part of the challenge with new anti-reflective lens is not to get to much light reflection and took my first shot in manual – I choose the ISO and the aperture first … then took my selfie.
It is a very light room, there is a slight reflection on my glasses from the roof, but there we have it – a fairly even lit photo of me with the over white wall behind.
So then without moving any of the equipment, I increased the shutter speed to cut our most of the ambient light in the room, it meant increasing my shutter speed above the camera flash sync – so high speed sync was turned on. To compensate for the increase in shutter speed, I increased the flash power … to 1/2 power. Cause there is a snood on the flash, the light is quite hard, so you can see it creates a spot light kind of effect… two very different shots in just a moment.
Easy to recreate …. I coached a reluctant teen to come and pose for a photo (it was a lot easier to focus) and he moved around a bit but I was able to create 2 different looks without changing my equipment.
Do I like to share selfie’s… and I comfortable taking them, not really – but as a photographer it is important to learn to be comfortable both sides of the camera.
Helen's Photo Challenge 
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