Re: [Leica] a lunatic flash technique... try it.

["Ted Grant" <tedgrant@home.com>]

Johnny Deadman wrote:
>>> Anyway, now I share a technique. Everyone knows you can bounce the flash
off
> the ceiling, and walls to the left and right of you, but next time try
> this...  ...... fire the flash backwards.
>
> yeah it sounds ludicrous but if you are standing about six feet from a
wall
> you will get a beautiful diffuse frontal lighting, real beauty shot stuff.
>
> You'll lose a couple of stops but most flashes are overpowered anyway, of
course everyone
> will also think you are completely off your trolley  that guy's shooting
his flash BACKWARDS!

Hi John,

I did that many years ago when we used the big wet battery Mutiblitz
strobes, big heavy mothers that packed a blast of light and it, as you say,
created the greatest light effect, soft and gentle, very beautiful for
women.

The first time I tried it in the Chateau Laurier Hotel in Ottawa I had
someone come to me and say, "Excuse me, but unfortunately I don't think your
snaps will turn out, you had your flash pointing the wrong way."

"Oh my goodness thank you, I hadn't noticed." ;-) Then went right on
shooting while the guy kept a watchful eye on this lunatic photographer
pointing the light the wrong way.:-)

It's very interesting light and may I make a suggestion for the "flashers"
give it a try. :-) It sure beats the hell out of big black wall shadows!~
ted





Ted Grant Photography Limited
www.islandnet.com/~tedgrant
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "" <john@pinkheadedbug.com>
To: "LUG" <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 2:14 PM
Subject: [Leica] a lunatic flash technique... try it.


> on 5/31/01 4:35 PM, Rodgers, David at david.rodgers@xo.com wrote:
>
> > You said it. I admire people who are masters with artificial light. I
find
> > that it very difficult. And I don't mean masters at using a dozen, but
even
> > a single well placed.
>
> actually I think it is easier to light with one well placed light plus a
> reflector than three or four or five or more.
>
> more light = more spill
>
> spill = confusion
>
> the light gets where you don't want it!
>
> often the key to lighting well is simply controlling the spill. A big room
> is better because the walls don't reflect the light where you don't want
it.
> Moving the subject away from the back wall helps a lot too. High ceilings
> ditto. And lots of flags!
>
> Even so it's hard to make lots of lights look natural because we are
> basically used to a single light source: the sun
>
> or, rather, the sky
>
> In fact we really in general respond to diffuse directional light, like
you
> get from a window or under the leaves of a tree near a clearing. So you
have
> to go to a lot of trouble to get your lights diffuse, umbrellas and
> softboxes and silks and reflectors.
>
> But there's diffuse and diffuse. I don't think a source is truly diffuse
> unless it occupies about sixty to ninety degrees of arc as seen from the
> subject's POV. That's BIG. Picture window big.
>
>
> but hey. they already think you're nuts for using a leica.
>
>
>
> --
> John Brownlow
>
> http://www.pinkheadedbug.com
>
>