Bounce flash

photo 1: flash on camera, directly at the subject

 I have written some stories about off camera flash, where you put the flash on a stand away from the camera. This gives you great control over the lighting. But sometimes this is not practical: when you do reportage, it is often impossible or impractical to put the lights out there, and get them in the right place. Or you may not have all the equipment with you.

Sometimes you can work with daylight, which can be very beautiful, but sometimes this is not possible. Light levels may be too low to get sharp photos, or the daylight may not be nice. Then you turn to flash.

Actress Dipo Katimba posed for these photos. She is the star of many Nanzikambe productions and the film Okoma Atani. Thank you Dipo.

photo 2: flash bounced off the ceiling.

 

Flash on the camera tends to look ugly: it is a small light source, which means it gives hard light. The light source is attached to the camera, which places it close to the lens. That means most of the shadows fall behind the subject and are invisible on the photo. The shadows that you do see are small, close to the subject and have hard edges. On top of that you get light to reflect straight off the face of the people you photograph. Especially with African skin this tends to give ugly reflections. Caucasian people tend to have less of these reflections, but the colour of their skin turns into a bright unhealthy pink.

photo 3: flash bounced off the wall to the left

In many cases bounce flash is a good solution: the flash unit is on the camera which makes it practical for reportage situations. But you aim the flash not at the subject, but at a surface to bounce it off. So you need a swivel head flash and a white wall or ceiling nearby (the ceiling should not be too high). A lot of the light goes outside your photo, around the room, so you need a powerful flash.

Then you turn the swivel head towards the white surface, the light from the flash does not go straight to the subject of the photo, but to the ceiling or wall, where it lights a big area. This effectively becomes the light source. So the light source is big, which makes for soft light. And the light source is away from the camera which makes natural shadows. A ceiling tends to look natural: the natural light source of the sun is above us. A wall tends to look natural: the light looks much like the light from a window.

The direction of the light has strong influence on the look of the photo.

photo 4, flash bounced off the wall on the right

In photo 2 the flash was aimed at a low white ceiling. This looks natural. The shadows are soft, and not too deep, because the flash throws a lot of light around the room, which lights up the shadows. But in this case it is not the best choice: because of Dipos big afro a part of her face, including the eyes is in the shadow of the hair. Most of the time we want to see the eyes: if you want to understand a person’s feelings you look into the eyes. If you cannot see the eyes, it can be frustrating. Here there is still some light in the eyes, but I tend to like a bit more there.

So in photo 3 I turned the flash to the wall on the side of the face, and you see that now the light is lighting up the face much the same way a window does. This is my favourite of the series.

photo 5: flash bounced off the wall behind the camera

Then in photo 4 I turned the flash to the wall away from the face and you see that it mostly lights up the ear, more than the face. Not my favourite, unless you have something special that side of the face. Maybe if you are making an advertisement for earrings it could work.

Lastly in photo 5 I turned the flash to the wall behind the camera. This gives almost no shadows. The light is soft so it is much better than the direct flash of photo 1, but I tend to like some shadows that bring out the shape of the face, or another subject.