How to Use On-Camera Flash

Taking great flash photos is often a challenge because of the harshness of the light coming from the flash.  Taking a picture with the flash pointed directly at the subject is almost guaranteed to make the photograph look amateurish and unpleasant.  Pleasing light is generally much more diffuse than what you get with a direct flash.  When using a small point source of light like a flash to illuminate a subject, you will end up with very distinct shadows and a lack of subtlety.  In order to reduce the harshness of the flash and soften the light, you have to make the light source larger.  Larger light sources produce more diffuse light.  We can use this principle to improve the quality of our flash photos.



One of the simplest and most effective ways to improve the quality of light from a flash is to bounce the light off a ceiling or wall.  By doing this, the subject is illuminated by light reflecting off an entire wall or ceiling.  The effective size of the light source increases dramatically, which makes the light much more diffuse and pleasant.   Depending on how you bounce the light, you can achieve some pretty impressive results.  Many photographers just bounce the flash up at the ceiling at a 45 degree angle.  This definitely softens the light, but the resulting image can look somewhat flat.  You can often get even better results if you bounce the flash up and to the side so the light falls on the subject from the upper right or left.  If you do this properly, you can create subtle shades of light and dark that will make the subject look more 3 dimensional.



      

The two photos above are the same except for the flash technique used.  One of the photos was taken using direct flash and the other was taken using bounce flash.  Can you guess which one is which?  It is clear that the first photo has the harsh shadows and hot spots reflecting back.  The second photo has much more diffuse lighting.  So the first one is the direct flash. 

If you really want to gain control over flash lighting, you can get all sorts of flash modifiers like umbrellas, soft boxes, and custom diffusers to meet your needs.  The principle for all these devices is the same.  They take a point source of light and spread it out over a much larger area to soften the light.  Another technique that advanced photographers often use is off-camera flash, often with multiple flash units.  The range of possibilities for lighting a subject using a flash is practically endless.  That‘s what makes flash photography so fun.

There are many more flash techniques that can dramatically improve your photos.  One of the best books covering on-camera flash is written by Niel van Niekerk.  You will get the most out of this book if you already understand the basics of photography.  You can get it at Amazon:  On-Camera Flash Techniques.