I always struggle with using flash to light a scene, especially portraits. I elected to take multimedia classes rather than cinema & photography, so I didn’t take the studio photography course that would have been part of that track. So I try to learn what I can as I go along, sometimes with very bad results. I want to share a couple of resources that I’ve discovered lately, as well as one that I’ve been reading for quite a while.
Strobist is full of great tips for lighting and finding/making equipment on a budget. Since I’m always on a very small budget, I’ve found a lot of useful information there. In fact, I spent several hours going over the archives the first time I stumbled across the site. The DIY ethic is the foundation of Strobist, and they often feature techniques based on equipment made for free from materials you can find at home.
One of my new favorites is Analyzed, a feature on AmericanPhotojournalist.com that takes an image and reverse-engineers it so that other photographers can see the process used to create the photo. A lot of the techniques seem to involve having unlimited access to clamps, lights, etc. (and more than 30 minutes notice that someone’s coming in for a portrait), but understanding the methods often means you can make the photo with DIY equipment.
The other site I’m still working my way through is A Photographer’s Sketchbook, which diagrams the equipment and positioning the photographer used to take a variety of portraits. This is a really cool thing to do, because although the discussions on Analyzed are usually pretty good, sometimes I have a hard time figuring out exactly where people are placing their flashes just from their descriptions. The author of Photographer’s Sketchbook makes it somewhat idiot-proof. There are also sections with techniques for using two and three flashes.
