Aamir Zakaria Photography

Flash pho­tog­ra­phy became quite a mys­tery to me once I became more seri­ous about pho­tog­ra­phy.  Even when I was using point-and-shoot, most of my flash pho­tographs looked awful.

What I’ve since learned is that the small­er the source of light, the harsh­er light it will produce.

Here is a tip:

Using an adjustable flash, in a suit­able indoor envi­ron­ment, you can bounce the flash off the walls to cre­ate, essen­tial­ly, a very large light source, which will soft­en the light con­sid­er­ably.  I’m using a Canon Speedlite 430 EX II, which is a sol­id choice if you only need a sin­gle flash.

Here’s the first shot I took with the flash fac­ing direct­ly towards my subject:

On this sec­ond one, I’m bounc­ing the flash off the off-white wall and ceiling.

What a remark­able difference!

The prob­lem with shoot­ing flash straight on your sub­ject is that it does­n’t cre­ate any shad­ows.  As Syl Are­na points out again and again in the Speedliter’s Hand­book, “To cre­ate inter­est­ing light, you also need to cre­ate inter­est­ing shadows.…If every­thing in your pho­to is lit even­ly, then noth­ing will stand out”.