All language subtitles for 6. Flash Positioning - Reflections Academy

Before we go any further, I have to

say you are doing great.

We are slowly but surely covering the fundamentals

of flash photography and if you're just starting

out your journey with the flash, I know

how challenging it can be.

So kudos to you for pushing through these

first few lessons.

Now, if you're coming from the world of

natural light photography, this lesson is going to

be a bit more familiar to you.

We're going to talk about positioning the flash

and as you probably know how important it

is to have any light, including natural light,

positioned well in accordance to our subject, you

can guess that it's absolutely no different with

flash.

Or to be more precise, where our flash

is positioned will tremendously affect the final look

and feel of our photographs.

And usually where we all begin our flash

journey is with the flash being attached on

the hot shoe of our camera, pointed straight

to the subject.

And don't worry, there is nothing wrong with

that either.

Actually, a legendary fashion photographer, unfortunately also later

known for many controversies, Terry Richardson, used only

this kind of a setup.

Flash attached directly on the camera.

But there are also so many other creative

ways that you can position your flash, keeping

it on the camera or taking it off

the camera and firing it via flash trigger.

We will cover quite a few of these

examples ourselves in the following lessons.

But before we take the flash off the

camera, the first positioning I would like to

talk about is distance of the flash to

the subject.

In the lesson about TTL, I've already given

you some hints about how if we change

the distance between us and the subject, we

will usually also need to change the power

output of the flash.

That's where TTL comes in handy.

But let's now take a closer look and

see what actually happens there.

As with any other light, the closer it

is to the subject, the stronger it will

light it and vice versa.

So if the proper setting of our on

-camera flash in the manual mode is, let's

say, one quarter of the power and you

are two meters away from your subject, it

will become much stronger if you step in

one meter at the same settings.

And naturally, it will become weaker if you

step away and keep, again, the same settings

on your flash.

On the other hand, if you take the

flash off your camera and put it in

one place, now you can move freely and

the strength of the light will stay absolutely

the same in accordance to the subject if

we don't move the subject or the light.

My setup usually looks like this.

I keep my flash off the camera for

most of the time and I hold the

flash in one hand and my camera in

the other.

Now, I know this is not an easy

to work with setup, especially with my Canon

28-70mm lens attached, but it gives me

so much control over the angle and the

distance I point my flash to my subject.

And also, it works as a great motivation

for me to go to the gym.

So now that we know what the effect

the distance has, let's see what effect the

angle between flash and our lens has on

the final look of photographs.

In short, the closer you put your flash

to your lens, the more direct it lights

the subject and creates less of the visible

shadows.

And the further away you put it, the

shadows become more obvious and the whole look

of the photograph becomes more dramatic, if we

can call it that way.

This is one of the reasons I keep

my flash in my hand as the length

of my arm is basically the farthest I

would normally position the flash from my lens.

And this is my personal preference, so you

don't have to do this this way.

You can find your own ways, but I

wanted to share how I do it.

Of course, I will share it in way

more detail in the further lessons how exactly

I would position flash in different scenarios.

But then I know many photographers who use

light stands for their flashes, so they even

put them in the position of backlight for

their photographs.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that

either, but this kind of positioning just doesn't

work well with my visual style of photography,

which again doesn't mean you shouldn't try it

and find out if this would be your

cup of tea.

One other reason I keep my flash off

the camera is that we do a lot

of vertical shots and I prefer the light

coming from above the lens rather than from

the side, which makes the shadows behind the

subject look a bit more natural in my

opinion.

We don't get these ghost shadows next to

our subjects, but more appealing shadow that falls

down behind our subject.

Now, if my setup is too heavy and

too physically demanding for you, you can also

find some flash brackets that will hold your

flash above your lens with the camera in

vertical position and make it a bit more

bearable to carry.

Again, for me, these flash brackets feel a

bit limiting and I prefer to keep the

option of choosing where exactly I will point

my flash at any given time.

In the later lessons, I will show you

where exactly and how I put my flash

to achieve different looks.

But for now, as with all previous lessons,

I wanted to touch on the fundamentals and

make sure you have all the basics covered

so that you can confidently follow the more

advanced techniques I'm going to show you in

the later lessons.

So this brings us to the end of

the first part of the first part of

the course and now we can keep going

and check out the camera settings.

As I said, if you're new to flash

photography, please don't skip the part about camera

settings.

The camera will behave differently when paired with

flash, so even though you might have your

photography knowledge with natural light, we have to

go through all camera settings also when the

camera is paired with the flash.

So let's go to the next part of

the course.