Here’s a picture – a very simple one, with no pretensions to be anything other than a demonstration shot. It shows the group of photographers who joined me last week to learn more about portraiture.  

I was showing the group how to get the best from their flash guns both on and off the camera, when I decided to show them the old technique of firing multiple flashed on one exposure – with just one flash unit of course.

I was taught the technique by a photographer called Arthur Partington when I was just a 15 year old apprentice on a local newspaper. In those days staff photographers like Arthur were expected to turn their hands to every job that came in to the office – and that included news, features, weddings, some commercial work, and advertising. Arthur had the task of photographing a carpet warehouse in an old converted cotton mill. The floor area was vast, the ceiling fairly low and supported by dozens of steel pillars. The whole place was covered in rolls of carpet. The client wanted to show the scale of his operation by having the entire warehouse area photographed and the picture printed in a full page ad in our broadsheet paper.

One winter evening, Arthur went prepared with his Speed Graphic 5 x 4 glass plate camera, a heavy wooden tripod, a huge bulb flash gun, an empty shoulder bag and another containing about a dozen PF1000 flash bulbs (I think that’s what they were). These old-fashioned flash bulbs were about the size of a large orange and often exploded when they were fired.

And Arthur took me. I had a particular job to do.

First he found his best angle and set the camera up on the tripod. Then he turned to me and walked me right around the warehouse floor showing me exactly where and in which direction he wanted me to let of one of the flash bulbs. I was under threat of death if I got it wrong. Every time I let off a flash bulb I would have to be hidden behind one of the pillars. Right. Arthur eyed my with distrust and asked if I was ready. He pulled out the sheath from the slide holder. Opened the shutter on ‘B’ and told me to Go!

Oh, I almost forgot, before he sent me off, he turned off most of the lights in the warehouse. I could barely see where I was going.

A raced around that warehouse blasting off flashes as I went. Each time I fired a flash bulb it had to be unscrewed (burning my fingers), the spent bulb dropped into the empty bag and a new bulb screwed into the flash gun ready for the next blast. Three times bulbs exploded with a terrifying bag, spraying me with fine shards of glass. Each time Arthur yelled – “Don’t stop you little bugger, keep moving”.

By the time I had fired the last flash bulb and Arthur had closed his shutter, I had covered the equivalent of a 200 yard sprint under heavy fire in the dark. I was gasping for breath and shell-shocked.

“Right”, said Arthur. “Get that camera packed up and we’ll get off home.”

I watched Arthur develop the glass plate and print the photograph next morning. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was as though the entire warehouse had been lit with studio lighting. It was beautifully lit.

Well that’s a mighty long explanation for the method used to take the picture above. All I did was darken the room. Stick the camera on a tripod. Tell the subjects to keep dead still, opened the shutter and dashed around everyone letting off the flash gun. Closed the shutter. No cables, no infra-red, no wireless-systems. None of that is needed… just you with a flash in your hand The flash was fired four times.

I admit it’s not ideal – some of the shadows are in the wrong place, one flash has looked into the camera (over the shoulder of the man sat on the left) and another has lit part of my red sweater (over on the right). But as a quick two-minute demo it was very effective.

You can try this at home. It’s great fun and you’ll learn lots. Multi flash pictures can have an extraordinarily powerful visual appeal if you get it just right.

Due to a late cancellation I now have one place available for the Photography Weekend on 7th – 9th March. The theme is portraiture with both available light and flash.

Full details on my website

You’ll really enjoy this one, but do let me know asap.

Cathy was asking in one of her comments whether I had shown any of the pictures I took while I was working with her on the harbour side here in Kirkcudbright. Cathy is one of my students and was here with me on a one-to-one photography course a few months back. I delighted to say she will be joining us in Menorca for the photography holiday in May this year 

Well, as I have mentioned before, when I’m working with a student I don’t normally get much chance to take my own photographs, I’m far to busy concentrating on what the student is doing. When we spotted the chap in this photograph on the harbour, he was chatting to someone and just about to get back into his car – not the best place for good photographs. I explained to Cathy that the best thing to do was glance around, find the best spot to photograph him, then ask him to go there. The red bollard with the side of the boat and the nets as a background was an obvious make-shift studio.

I know Cathy was having problems with her auto focus at the time, but she did manage to get some successful photographs. I managed a couple of simple portraits on my little Canon Ixus.get your candid shots in first when it is feasible – and then don’t be afraid to make contact with your subject, it can lead to some good photographs 

The moral of this little yarn is that by all means, – remember, once you have broken the ice you have a tame subject in front of you. Don’t was the opportunity – take lots of photographs.

Yes, I know the light was flat and undirectional, but the portraits are lifted by the extraordinarily bright colours of the subjects shirt, and the blue and green background. This background also helps tell the story of an old salt on the harbour – and I simply love the carpet slippers!

These are simple portraits – no great works of art, but they are fun to take, and this sort of photography is good practice for anyone wanting to learn and build their confidence when photographing people in the street. Meeting this chap has opened the opportunity to meet him again and take more photographs of his – perhaps with better light.

Good light is the photographer’s most vital yet least understood ingredient – more important than a whole bagful of expensive gear. Let’s face it, you can’t take photographs without light, so the more you get to grips with it, and understand what it can and can’t do, the better. A sound understanding of light will transform the way you see and enable you to express yourself visually. It will help you highlight the vibrancy of colours, create visual mood, pick out the textures of everything from stone walls to wrinkly faces; hide blemishes in younger faces, and capture the outline shapes of almost any subject you choose. 

Oddly, you don’t need a camera in your hands to practise ‘seeing the light’. Start by observing the way it falls on everything around you; people’s faces, buildings, trees, water. You can do this any time, anywhere, no matter what you are doing; walking to work, sitting by a window, out shopping. This is part of a process that will enable you to be objective about your photography and to start seeing the way the camera sees.

Only by understanding and seeing the way the camera sees will you be able to express your visual ideas with certainty.

Observing light soon becomes a habit – a way of seeing – and you won’t be able to stop seeing it once you start – I tell my students it’s like the Chinese curse of having a monkey on your back – you can never get rid of the habit once you’ve got it. However, our Light Monkey is a helpful soul and he is always there to help… although he may give you a sharp poke in the ear if you stop listening to him.

Good, and appropriate, light can enhance you photographs in so may ways. Just one of those ways is to accentuate the illusion of depth within your two-dimensional image. Think of yourself as an illusionist – one of the most powerful illusions you can create is that illusion of depth – the third dimension. Composition is one way to achieve this, the other is intelligent use of light direction and quality.

I’m going to be looking at the different directions of light and how they can transform and enhance your photographs. First, let’s talk about side light – it’s perhaps the star of the show.

SIDELIGHT
With the light to one side of your subject (almost any subject), you will create the illusion of depth, texture, shape, form, substance, on your two-dimensional photograph. This can be powerful stuff. Side light can transform everything from portraits or landscape into strongly textured images with the illusion of that third dimension. Beware, though, with portraiture it shows every imperfection of a model’s complexion, some subjects hate it as it shows the texture of their skin (wrinkles), so it’s not the way to disguise those ‘laughter lines’. In townscapes it can make buildings appear as 3D cubes. In landscapes, sidelight makes tree trunks look round, and brings out the contours and textures of hillsides and fields – and all because the light is on one side and shadows are on the other.

Over the last three post, I’ve demonstrated just a few of the ways you can create beautiful, soft, directional light with your flash gun attached to your camera. I hope by now you are realising that a flash really is a superbly versatile and portable source of light. When you have the facility to separate that flash gun from your camera, things get even better. Then you can really put light exactly where you want it.  

For the photojournalist, a small portable flash is absolutely essential. Without it, he, or she, could not hope to get professional standard photographs in difficult, remote and often poorly lit locations. I have often chosen deliberately to photograph my subjects in what might be described as ‘difficult’ light conditions, and the reason for this is simple – those difficult light conditions can produce highly atmospheric photographs.

Take a glance at the photograph of the man sitting astride the old butcher’s bicycle. This was a wonderful story about a man called Cor Ellen – he is a professional beachcomber on the Dutch Friesian island of Texel in the North Sea. I was commissioned to photograph him for an article for ‘You’, the Mail on Sunday Magazine in UK. I took a great many photographs of Cor – in his home, working on the beach, with his collection of extraordinary things found washed up on the shore. But I wanted an atmospheric shot of Cor on the old bicycle he used to get around the island. I also wanted to show the atmosphere of this remote, wild and windswept place – where better than on the shore beneath the lighthouse.

To add atmosphere, I chose to wait until late afternoon when the light was fading. The camera was put on a tripod. I took a light reading of the cloudy part of the sky. At ISO100, that gave me 1/15sec at f11. The flash was held in my hand as far away from the camera as possible to my right hand side. It was connected to the camera by a long cable (synch lead). I timed the flashes of the lighthouse and pressed the shutter just before it shone.

The flash has fired and lit Cor and the bicycle, but the shutter has remained open – gathering the light from the sky and the lighthouse. A very similar technique to that I described in my article about photographing sparks.

TIP FOR TODAY
Try to avoid those ‘curly’ flash cables – the springy ones like those on a telephone handset. They are a menace because the temptation is to stretch them just a little more, and a little more, to get the flash just that little bit further away from the camera. Then BANG! the tripod is pulled over. It happens so suddenly you will be unable to stop it. Better – if you can – to use a long, simple synch lead with no spring or curls in it. Then you will always know how far it can be pulled.

Cordless infra-red devices are often unreliable in adverse outdoor conditions.

When I said that sidelight was the ‘star of the show’ I meant it. It is not always ideal for making attractive women look more glamorous, but when you want to bring out the character in your subject, it can work extremely well. For portraits, it is really very easy to create with a flash attached to the hot shoe of your camera. The soft sidelight in the picture of the girl in period costume was done simply by pointing the flash at a large reflector positioned out of shot on the left. I have used a fairly fast shutter speed 1/160sec to cut out most of the ambient light in the background, which has gone quite dark – just the effect I was looking for. What could be easier? 

Remember, flash is an instant burst of light. If you are shooting in a room that is also brightly lit by daylight coming in through the windows or strong artificial light, and the shutter remains open after the flash has fired (slow shutter speed), you will ‘gather’ more light in the camera. This can be a very effective technique for certain subjects. It can ruin others.

Now take another look at the portrait posted in part 2 of the chap kippering his lungs with the roll-up cigarette. This time I have bounced the flash off a light-coloured wall off to the left and used a slow shutter speed, 1/15sec. This has ADDED some ambient light which has helped fill the shadows on the right side of his face. The slight blurring of the smoke is evidence of that slow shutter speed. The flash has gone off and lit his face on the left of the picture, but the shutter has remained open long enough to gather some available light on the right. A very different effect from that picture of the girl in costume, but it has worked in this situation.

1
I have bounced the flash off a light-coloured surface to my right. This creates good sidelight which has lit the model’s hair nicely and given shape and form to her face. The nearer the flash is to the reflective wall, the stronger the shadows will be. The effect was done by using the set-up in 2

3
If you want to soften those shadows, simply put another reflector opposite the flash. This lovely, soft, flattering light is created by pointing a flash at a wall to the right of the model while placing another white reflector to the left. This reflector helps fill any shadows created by the sidelight

4
Some flash guns do not articulate to the sides – they will only point dead ahead and upwards. Don’t forget you can reflect these flash guns off a wall to create sidelight if you turn the camera on its side and shoot in portrait format. The most versatile flash guns have a light head that can be swivelled both upwards 90 degrees, and also to either side and directly backwards – away from the subject. Almost any angle of light reflection can be achieved with this type of flash gun.

Flash is the most portable, convenient and versatile light source you can use, but a moveable flash head that can be aimed in all directions is essential if you are to achieve the most from a flash unit when it is attached to your camera