Here are two photos that I trawled from the archives …

Firstly, I never used this set-up like this. No, really!
This was honestly all assembled just to see how crazy it would look.

And even I have a sense of proportion about things, and realise I would’ve looked like the photo-geek cousin of The Terminator if ever I slung this around. It does look truly hardcore though!

That’s the D2H with the WT-1A wireless transmitter.  The antenna sticking out on the side is the extended range antenna … and this is actually the reason why I slammed all this together.  When the extended range antenna arrived I realised that that there was no good way of attaching this to a camera, aside from attaching it to a flash bracket. So I used a Monfrotto ball-head to attach the antenna to the flash bracket. 

The radio transmitter (which only appears in the rear photo), is used to trigger other remote flashguns.

.

.

I tried the WT-1A in the studio a few times (without the extended-range antenna), and it was pretty amazing to see the images roll in on the computer while I shot. I even had parents check out the photos of their kids on the laptop, as I was shooting. It helped with the proofing of the images, since the parents had already seen every image by the time I was done.

The downside of using the WT-1A is that I am not a network engineer … it just needed one tiny setting somewhere to be off, for the thing not to work. And it was a headache then to track through every step and figure out what had changed. In the end I sold the WT-1A and the antenna, and never actually used the combination on a shoot. So that took care of my problem of how to actually use the extended-range antennna on a shoot.

The bracket is a Custom Brackets bracket that I modified by lopping the extraneous bits off. Some of it with an angle-grinder. (Actually, I AM hardcore!) These days I don’t use a flash bracket that much anymore. (It depends though.) And mostly I just have the Quantum radio transmitter velcro’d to the top of the strobe.

Most often when photographers start using their flashguns out of the directly-forward position, they move the flash head to point 45’ or 90’ upward. The idea here is to bounce flash off the ceiling. Even though this is an improvement in most cases over using the flashgun pointing directly forward, this is also most often not ideal. We can improve on this.

If we consider how studio lights are set up, we’ll rarely see a light source directly overhead of our subject. Top lighting just isn’t as flattering as light coming in from an angle to the subject. And in the same way, why would we want to bounce flash directly overhead of our subjects?

The subtitle of this post should be: You don’t really need that Lightsphere .
(Or whatever is the flavour of light modifier for this particular month.)

We need to consider the direction of our light carefully. This is one of the areas in which we can really set ourselves apart as photographers – by carefully choosing the direction our light falls onto our subject, we can control the mood of the photograph completely.

We have to think of the actual area that we’re bouncing light off, as our light source – and not of the flashgun as our light source.

Looking at this sequence of photographs, we can see that the direction of light came from slightly behind the subject to the camera’s left. These images were all done using a single on-camera flashgun.

A very important point here is that there is there is no light coming from ‘camera’s viewpoint’. In other words, from our viewpoint (which is the camera’s viewpoint), there is no light directly from directly forward. Therefore, instead of a flat even light, we have directional light. Light is coming in from the side, and creating that interplay between light and shade that creates shape and gives dimension to our subjects. The exact way that flash was bounced here, was by pointing the flashhead 45’ swiveled to the camera’s left, and tilted about 30’ up. To stop any direct flash falling onto the bride, I blocked the strobe with my left hand. This way I shielded the light from her, and the light from the flashgun fell onto the wall to the camera’s left, and slightly behind where she was sitting.

So in effect, our light source is coming from above and slightly behind our bride. This way we’re mimicking the effect that a large softbox would’ve given us.

Another very important point here to remember is, if your subject can see any part of your flashhead, then you are indeed getting direct flash. Or at least a measure of direct flash. Most often this is not flattering. The entire reason why we are bouncing flash, is to create softer light. And direct light from your flashgun will most often not be flattering and negate the quality of light we’re trying to achieve.

Looking at two more images from this sequence, we can see in the close-up images where our light-source is. It is crucial here that we see that the light was not bounced on the ceiling, or even behind us.

Bouncing the light on the ceiling would’ve given darker eye-sockets and that ‘raccoon eyes’ effect. Bouncing light behind us, would’ve given us much softer light from our flashgun than direct flash would’ve given us – but this would’ve produced light that is too flat.

No flash modifier was used, aside from my hand blocking light. Any off-the-shelf light modifier would’ve thrown too much forward, spilling directly on the bride’s face. That direct light would’ve been unflattering.

Just how much flash was used, and how it was balanced with available light, can be deduced from this image on the left.This is the initial image, where I didn’t use flash at all, but used the available light to create a silhouette effect. The same camera settings were used for the images above. Using flash wisely made all the difference.

.
In these two images we can see exactly the effect that the flash has had – and how much available light there was. All the light falling on the bride is from the flash on the camera. And here, even more clearly we can discern from the direction of the light, that the light source is the wall to the camera left, and behind the bride. 

.
Being very specific about the direction of our light source, we’re able to create flattering portraits with the minimum of fuss.

And being specific abour direction of our light source, means we simply can’t place a flash modifier on our flashgun and shoot without putting much thought into it.