How to Soften the Light When Using Flash

By: Shiv Verma

Why do flash images look harsh?

Recently, a number of dPS readers have asked the question on Facebook, “How do I use a flash and not have my images look so harsh?”.
Let us first understand the difference in using natural or ambient light and using a flash. With natural light you have little control over intensity, direction, or color. With a flash, you have a lot more control if you can grasp the fundamentals of light and exposure. Using a flash you can control the direction, intensity, color and distribution of the light.
A good understanding of how your flash affects the way the subject is lit, and how it will appear in the final image is important.

Understanding light

The properties of light include: quality of light, quantity of light, and also color of light, but we will exclude that from this article.
Brightness: is a relative expression of the intensity of energy output of a visible light source.
Contrast: is the difference in light between parts of an image.
Shadows and highlights: consider that the absence of light is shadow, so shadows are parts of your subject that are not lit, and highlights are the parts that are lit.
The quality of light: here we use the terms “hard” and “soft” to define the quality of light. Hard light is found on a bright, sunny day. It creates very bright and very dark areas in the same scene. Another good example of hard light is an on-camera flash. When it is used as the only light source it results in a brightly lit subject and a very dark background. Soft light on the other hand can be defined as smooth, diffuse and evenly distributed. This type  of light creates few shadows. Cloudy days and shaded areas are examples of this quality of light.
Size of the light:  small light sources produce hard light while large light sources produce soft light.
Distance: the farther the light source is from the subject, the harder the light it will produce.
Example: although the sun is very large, its relative size to us is small and it produces a hard light. However, on a cloudy day the light becomes a relatively large light source and the sun is no longer a hard light. Not only do the clouds make the light source relatively larger, they take that bright light source and diffuse it. As a result there is no direct light falling on anything in the scene you are photographing.

Nissin Flash with Diffuser

You can conclude that on a cloudless day, the light source is small, it is distant, it is bright and therefore is hard light. This light will create sharp shadows that define high contrast. On a cloudy day the relative size of the light source is large, it is much closer (the cloudy sky), less bright, and diffused. This light will create soft shadows and thereby lower contrast.
Photographing different types of subjects require different types of light. In response to the question asked, lets consider people photography. Your portraits will be far more pleasing when they are photographed with less contrast using a soft light. Yet in some cases, like for dramatic portraits of actors, high contrast looks great. High contrast using hard light is good when you want to show texture of the skin in older people. Contrast will exaggerate texture and facial features as the shadows are well defined. Less contrast, or the use of soft light (diffuse light), will deemphasize the texture and give skin a smoother appearance. This is what you are looking for, particularly with the female portrait.
When you use a flash, on or off camera, you are using a relatively small, hard, directional light source. This is a problem, since you end up with high contrast and a harsh appearance to your portrait. To solve this problem you have to make the light softer by making it larger. Remember, soft light is a large, light source, so the key to making your light softer is to make it larger.

Modifying light from the flash

On-camera flash

Here are some ways to make the on-camera flash into a soft light source. We will start with the simplest without using additional products, and move on to the more complex options using modifiers.
Bounce the flash: Bouncing is one way to make the light source larger but the light will also lose intensity. By bouncing the light off of walls and ceilings, the light falling on your subject will originate from a much larger area as compared to a directly aimed flash. Outdoors this may not be possible so you may have to find other means to bounce the flash. You can use large white foam core boards, umbrellas or you can buy a reflector. Reflectors come in various sizes and can have multiple surfaces that bounce or reflect the light. These can be twisted and folded into very compact and portable bags.  If all you have is a white business card or an index card on hand, use an elastic band and affix the card to the top of your flash.  This will serve as a small bounce and help provide catch lights in the subject’s eyes.
Tips:

• Since bouncing the light reduces light intensity you will need to adjust your flash for higher output.
• Bouncing off colored walls or ceilings will impart the same color cast on your subject

Rogue FlashBender Large

Use a Diffuser: The simplest diffuser is a piece of tissue paper taped in front of the flash lens. Plastic diffusers that either fit over the flash head or are fastened using Velcro or elastic bands, are the next step up. Stofen makes these diffusers in various sizes to fit most flash heads. A number of products that will bounce and diffuse light are available – Rogue Flash Bender products are a good example.  A number of manufacturers make small portable soft boxes designed for use with a flash.
Diffusers work well for indoor flash photography but are not that useful when outdoors. In addition, just as when using bounced light, diffusers also require higher power to achieve the same exposure.
There is one other problem that needs solving – flat lighting. The on-camera flash sits near the axis of your lens, so when you use a diffuser the light will still be coming from the same angle and you portraits will have little dimensionality. The images will appear flat. It gets worse if there is no diffuser. You will get red-eye or the deer in the headlights look.

Off- camera flash

The position and direction of the light source has a great impact on the appearance of your subject. We covered contrast and how contrast is defined, but the visibility of this contrast (visibility of shadows and highlights) depends on the position of the light source, be it diffused or not.
Any subjects, no matter how much texture and dimension it may have, when lit and photographed from the same angle will look flat as shown in the diagram below left. In order to show dimension and texture, the flash direction and the angle of the camera lens must not be coincidental, as shown below right.
The maximum dimension theoretically would be when the light source and the camera are at 90 degrees. However, this is a bit extreme. See the diagram below.
If the flash is mounted on-camera the camera will see and capture the side of the subject that is blasted with head-on light. As a result there are few if any shadows and you get the appearance of a harshly lit subject.
It may not always be possible to use the flash off-camera. Even small extensions using flash brackets to either side or above will help. A flash mounted on a light stand and controlled via wireless trigger is ideal. Flash heads mounted in small softboxes (see below) or with a Rogue Flash Bender style product will defuse the light well.

Photoflex LiteDome XS

If you are in a studio like environment or even at home you can increase the relative size of your flash by directing it through a translucent (white not clear) shower curtain. You can build a PVC pipe frame and drape a shower curtain over it, or buy ripstop nylon and use it as diffusion material.
Finally, remember that the closer the light source is to your subject, the softer the light. The edge of the light source is softer than the center. Keep these tips in your arsenal. Armed with the information in this article you will hopefully make better portraits when using a flash and have a better understanding of controlling the light from your speedlight.
The following two portraits were shot in a casual setting with a white foam core board serving as a fill from the left side of the camera.  For the first image a diffuser that comes with the flash head was used.  As you can see that despite the use of a diffuser the light source is still small and relatively harsh.  The second portrait was shot using the light dome.  Notice how much softer the light is on the subject.  Both images are straight from the camera – no post-processing was done.

Single flash on-camera using a manufacturer supplied diffuser

Same flash mounted in a Photoflex LiteDome XS Softbox

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6 Ways of Using Reflector to Take Better Portraits

By: Dennis Drenner  

I’ve been making my living as a photographer for over 20 years, and have accumulated thousands of dollars of gear over time. I have the latest Canon SLRs, a full complement of lenses, strobes, light stands, gels, filters, soft boxes, tripods, and even some video and audio gear. But the one thing that often makes the biggest difference in the quality of my portraits is a simple $20 reflector. I never leave home without it and neither should you.
When shooting outdoor portraits, the first thing many photographers think about is the background, but the pros consider the quality of the light first and foremost. They know, for example, that a portrait with nasty overhead lighting is not going to work, no matter how cool the background.

A reflector can help you salvage bad light, and turn okay light into something magical. You can use your reflector from below to fill in shadows, or from above to block distracting light. You can bounce the sun from the silver reflector to create a main light, or you can use a reflector with a black side to create deeper shadows. You can even sit on your reflector to keep your pants clean when shooting outside, or pop it open dramatically to dazzle young children.
Most of the photos in this article were shot with a 5-in-1 reflector you can buy for less than $20. 5-in-1 refers to the fact that the reflector and cover can combine to give you five different options: white, silver, gold, and black sides, as well as a diffuser.
Here are 6 tips to help you use this versatile tool, a reflector, to transform your photos.

1. Using a Reflector for Fill Light

The most traditional use of the reflector is to simply reflect light into the shadows. I took my wife Karen out into our local park to demonstrate this.

In the photo on the left (above), she is photographed in nice soft light, but there are still pretty deep shadows under her eyes and chin. In the photo on the right, she is holding a reflector at her waist. The shadows on her face are noticeably lighter and there is a subtle catch-light (reflection of the reflector) in her eyes. If she were an older person with more textured skin, the contrast would be even more dramatic.

Of course, you may not always want to fill in the shadows in this way, but if you are trying to flatter someone it almost always helps. You don’t even need an official photo reflector. Anything that reflects light will work. In a pinch I’ve used everything from old newspapers to a nearby person wearing a white shirt.

2. Using a Reflector as the Main Light Source

This is one of my go-to reflector moves, and an easy way to wow your friends and family. You place your subject with the light hitting them from behind, then use a reflector to bounce the light back into their face. You will get nice soft light on their face, with a dramatic rim light on the back of the subject’s head. The only trick is positioning yourself so the light doesn’t go straight into your lens and create lens flare (unless you like that look, of course).

In the photo above the is sun hitting the left side of her face and arm. The light from a reflector is bouncing back some of the sun to light up her face.
You may also notice the shallow depth of field in this photo. If you are lighting with a reflector, you can jack up your shutter speed as much as you like to allow for a wide aperture (this photo was shot at 1/1250th of a second at f/2.0, with a 50mm lens). If you were using flash to create this same effect, you would have to lower your shutter speed (to 1/250th or whatever matches your camera’s maximum) to sync with the flash, requiring a larger aperture and greater depth of field (killing the whole look).
Yes, yes, some of you are no doubt thinking, “What about high speed sync?!” Well, yes, that could give you the same effect if you had the right equipment (and know how to do that). Or, you know, you could just use an old newspaper.

In the next example above, we positioned Karen against a tree and had her cousin Claudia reflect a spot of sunlight on her from about 10 feet away. At this distance, the light from the reflector looks more like it is coming from a grid spot or snoot (hard light) – in other words, it’s a focused and dramatic beam (notice the fall-off of light on her legs). It’s a cool look that you can recreate with a reflector, a few feet of aluminum foil, or your bathroom mirror. Your friends will be wowed, and ask what fancy gear you used for the shot (and your family will ask what happened to the bathroom mirror).
Using a slight variation of this technique, we moved the reflector slightly behind the subject (relative to the camera) to created a dramatic rim light on the face in a profile shot (see below).

3. Using a Reflector to Block Light

Sometimes you’ll find yourself in some beautiful shady light under a tree, except for that pesky sunbeam that finds its way through the leaves to light up your subject’s left ear. When this happens, turn your reflector into a light blocker (sometimes called a flag or gobo).
A few years ago, I was doing a maternity portrait in a local park, when a newspaper photographer snapped my picture using just this technique. If you look at the reflector, you can see the bright spots of sunlight that it’s blocking (imagine how those spots would have ruined the final image if we didn’t block them).

4. Using a Black Reflector to Create More Dramatic Shadows

Sometimes you actually want to deepen the shadows. I use this technique all the time in my headshot studio. Below is a photo of me with a white background. In one shot, I have a silver reflector opposite the main light, sending light back towards my left cheek. In the other, the reflector has a black cover on it, gobbling up reflected light, leaving a dark shadow on the cheek.


Except for the small change of literally flipping the reflector from one side to the other, the lighting setup is identical, but as you can see the difference is pretty dramatic. (For you studio lighting enthusiasts out there, my key light here is a large soft box, and there are two bare heads pointing at the background to make sure it is nice and bright white).
This is the same technique used in the famous Steve Jobs portrait where he has his hand on his chin. In addition to creating a little drama, you can also use this technique to give someone a photographic face-lift by trimming pounds from the dark side of their face and under their chin.

5. Who Holds the Reflector?

You may be saying to yourself, “But, I don’t have an assistant! Who’s going to hold the reflector for me?”. I usually don’t have an assistant either, but there is usually someone nearby who is more than happy to help, be it a family member, passerby, intern, wedding guest, etc. Sometimes you can even have the subject of the photo hold the reflector themselves (as in the photo of my wife holding the reflector at her waist in the photo above). Of course if you’re in the studio, or outside on a day without too much wind, you can just pop your reflector onto a light stand (like in the studio shots of me above).
In the photo below, I was shooting wedding portraits on a beach in the Florida Keys. My reflector assistant that day was one of the bridesmaids, who truly enjoyed helping her friends out with their portraits.

6. Reflectors in the Environment

Once you get the hang of reflectors, you’ll probably start noticing reflected light everywhere. Ever see a white building getting blasted by the sun? Well that’s nothing but a giant reflector! Depending on what’s around it, you may have found yourself a giant studio, with no rental fee.
Mind you, anything that reflects enough light can work as a reflector. A brick building, large truck, flock of seagulls flying by at just the right moment…

Final Notes

Although they may not be as sexy as strobe kits, reflectors can often yield similar, or superior results for your portraits, and are cheaper and easier to use. I will leave you with a few more assignment photos, shot using nothing more than a reflector.
In the child portraits below, note that there is light behind the kids in both cases, but there is still beautiful light on their faces. Same goes for the athlete portraits.


As a final image, I leave you with a group of wedding guests who were so enamoured of my reflector that they wanted a picture with it. Hopefully you will soon have similar feelings towards your own reflector!

Do you have any additional reflector tips to add? Please do so in the comments below.

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11 Ideas for More Unique Concert Photos

 By: Anabel DFlux

Musicians, magazines, fans, and record labels alike turn to skilled photographers to tell a story of a momentous performance and return unique concert photos.

Concert photographers are often on assignment for a publication that has sent them out to capture meaningful pictures that could very well go down in music history. Otherwise, music photographers are individually hired by the performing artists. Whatever brings you to the photo pit, your goal is to capture something wonderful.
That being said, the music photography industry has become surprisingly saturated in recent years. In order to stand out amongst the crowd, you have to take live music photographs that differ from others in your photo pit. Here are 11 tips on how to take more unique concert photographs.

#1 – Don’t Forget About the Detail Shots

Band: Behemoth

Although you want to focus heavily on the musicians performing on the stage, the detail shots are just as important.
Many bands put in a significant amount of effort into their live show productions, from stage props to lighting schemes. A unique and effective statement to your live concert gallery are some close-ups of the epic stage props that the band uses.
At the very least, the artist who created the props or the instrument company will thank you!

#2 – Play with Art and Distortion Lenses

Band: MGT. Shot with the Lensbaby Burnside 35.

Though concert photography is often an assignment from a journalistic outlet, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a couple of minutes to yourself to do something vastly different. You do not have to be afraid of using artistic or distortion lenses at a live show. If anything, they make the frame exceptionally cool!
The fish-eye lens became very famous by well-known concert photographers by being used at live shows. I, myself, love using the Lensbaby lenses at live concerts. The manual focus can oftentimes be much more effective than relying on autofocus.
Try using a copper tube to create very cool swirls around your subject.

Band: A Mirror Hollow. Shot with the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L IS USM lens.

You can submit the standard shots to the outlet, and the unique ones to the band. I am telling you, the musicians will love a new take on their live performances.

#3 – Tons of Flying Hair is Great

Band: Cradle of Filth

Naturally, try to capture the facial expressions of the performers. However, you are dealing with rockstars here, and part of the cool factor of these rock gods is their wild style.
Take advantage of the flying hair and fun headbanging, they can sometimes make cooler shots than your standard singing portraits.

#4 – Perspective is Everything

Band: HIM

Although concert photography can be very limited, between shooting time restrictions and limitations on your shooting location, you can still play with perspective.
The key to being different is viewing life through a lens that is more diverse than those around you, no pun intended. Get low, low, low to the ground and shoot up or move yourself to the very far side of the photo pit and shoot from there! Photograph in between the heads of fans or get up on the balcony.
Whatever you do, find new angles, views, and compositions to take advantage of to create more unique concert photos.

#5 – The Musician Doesn’t  Always Have to Look at You

Band: Nightwish

It is true that the viewer connects best when the subject is looking at or engaging with the camera.
However, you don’t always have to fight for that type of shot during a live concert setting. It’s okay for the musicians not to interact with you as a photographer. Shots of them looking away or down can be just as eye-catching.

#6 – Embrace the Light, Don’t Avoid it

Band: IAMX

Having a good grip on lighting will aid you in your concert photography journey. Stage lighting can differ tremendously between shows, venues, and even what lighting is available for that evening. The lighting can range from bright white strobes to deep reds.
Understanding how lighting is photographed by your camera, how it reflects on the instruments and equipment, and how the bulbs affect the performer’s skin tones will change how you take the photograph.

Most incredibly safe and tame images come from the photographer being wary of taking advantage of the lighting situation at concerts. Don’t be afraid to jump right in there and take advantage of whatever bizarre lighting scheme the performers have cooked up for you.
At the end of the day, the lighting is a part of the concert experience, and your job is to capture that.

#7 – Lens Flares are Rad

Band: Epica

On the topic of lighting, lens flares can be very cool!
This is, of course, an aesthetic choice, but I personally find them to be quite fun. You can cause a flare in a similar fashion to photographing during sunset or golden hour. When the light hits the front glass element of your lens at a specific angle, a flare will appear.

#8 – Overexposing and Underexposing Can Work

Band: The Misfits

To help accurately capture the emotion and feel of the show, it is alright to overexpose or underexpose your frame. This can also create a rather unique and uncommon type of photograph.
Use your best judgment and common sense here to determine when such exposures are appropriate.

#9 – Don’t Be Afraid to Get Close

Band: Jyrki69

Guitarists don’t bite (not hard anyway)! Don’t be afraid to get close to the performers on the stage. Take a wide-angle lens, such as a 16-35mm lens, and get right up in there. The perspective distortion can make for a very cool shot.
However, that being said, be aware of your surroundings. I cannot reiterate this point enough. Absolutely be aware of your surroundings!
It is easy to get lost in the moment and fall into a creative bliss when shooting, but a live music event is not the place to lose yourself.
If you’re not growing eyes in the back of your head, you’ll most likely get clonked right in the temple by a crowd surfer, tangled in a microphone cord, or smacked by a flying guitar. This will help you avoid injury to yourself and others.

#10 – In-Between Moments Tell a Story

Band: HIM

The band may have put their instruments down for a moment, but that doesn’t mean that the job of the photographer ends there.
Some in-between moments can become incredible iconic images through their powerful storytelling ability.

#11 – The Moment is More Important than Technical Accuracy

Band: IAMX

Let’s face the facts, we all pixel peep. I believe that over time, passionate photographers get a bit anxious about technical perfection in their images (I know I sure do sometimes). However, some niches such as event photography are not as fussed over technical mistakes as long as the moment captured is important.
There is be a fine balance between taking a good photograph by technique and taking a good photograph by design (aka a great and powerful moment). However, if you have to choose between capturing a fantastic story and ensuring equipment perfection, pick the story.
Many wonderful images are overlooked because the focus is too set on ensuring that an image is tack sharp rather than what the subject portrays.
Of course, this isn’t meant to be interpreted as disregarding technical proficiency. You should aim to take exceptional photographs, but don’t get lost in your pursuit and forget your purpose for photographing the event.

Your turn

Now that you have these tips in your photography toolbelt, go out there and take some wicked shots!

Band: Epica

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5 Tips for Portraits of Musicians That Will Help You Hit All the Right Notes

By: Melinda Smith 

I’d like to share a few tips for portraits of musicians that will help you avoid the awkward photos that make any musician cringe.

Sometimes we are lucky enough as photographers to be asked to photograph someone with one of their most prized possessions: their musical instrument. Most people that want to be photographed with their instrument really and truly love it, and it’s a part of who they are. As a musician myself, I love photographs with gorgeous instruments in them, and I am especially bothered by photos that don’t capture those instruments naturally. Sometimes I’ll come across a photo that makes me cry out, “Why?? Nobody would EVER hold their instrument like that!!” You can still be creative with your photos without making them awkward.

1. Trust the musician

If you aren’t familiar with the instrument you’re photographing, it is especially important to trust the musician. This isn’t the time to try every posing trick that you can come up with, ending up with flutes on top of the head, or cellos held under the chin.
Ask your subject how they hold their instrument naturally. You can ask how they hold their instrument while playing, or when they’re relaxing between songs. If it’s a big instrument, like a piano, ask them how they would stand next to it before they perform, or how they sit by it when they’re thinking about what to practice. Ask them to demonstrate how they carry their instrument from one place to another. These might seem like silly questions, but you can really get a sense of what positions and holds are natural, then you can build from there.

As an example, a violinist may tell you that she holds her violin under her right arm when resting. You could take that position, ask her to sit on a chair in a formal pose holding the violin under her arm and get a beautiful portrait of a girl and her violin. The key is to remember that they are much more expert at how to naturally pose with their instrument than you likely are. However, if you do happen to know their instrument well, feel free to use your knowledge to get beautiful natural poses.

2. Do your homework

Before a session with a musician, you could watch some videos on YouTube to see how people interact specifically with the instrument you’ll be photographing. Find a professional musician who plays the same instrument. Look at their website to see what kind of photos they have with their instruments. You may have a client who is very shy and need more guidance posing, so it’s helpful to have a few ideas ahead of time. Be prepared for challenges that an instrument might bring, such as unwanted reflections in brass, immobility of harps or pianos, sensitivity to temperature or weather, and have a plan.

3. Ask the musician to play for you

If you can get your subject to give you a little performance during the photo session, you will get some great action shots. It usually helps loosen them up a little bit too, and brings out some natural smiles. Remind them that it doesn’t matter if they make mistakes because your camera doesn’t catch any audio. It will only capture the perfect moments of their playing. Also, remind them that you aren’t there to judge their skill, you just want to capture the relationship they have with their instrument. Move around as they play, and catch the beautiful moment from every angle you can, close, and far.

4. Get close-ups of the action

Hands are the main part of playing most instruments. Get in close on the hands as they play. These shots often end up being some of my very favorites. Try focusing on the hands as you shoot down the neck of a guitar, the fingers on a flute, or hands that are frozen in mid-air during a drum solo. Getting in close on these details can create beautiful action photos that really tell the story. If their hands are moving too quickly for you to focus, ask them to freeze for a moment in that position while you get the shot.

5. Make the instrument the star

Take a few photos of the instrument by itself, too. Musicians love their instruments, and they will love photos that show their beauty. Make sure to ask permission to touch their instrument, and to set it down, move it, or anything you might want to do for the shot that could potentially harm it in any way. You can even ask the owner to do all of the touching and moving, and you can move yourself around to get the photo that you want.
Tell the musician what you have in mind, and they will most likely be on board, and be happy to help you get some amazing instrument photos. Instruments can be extremely expensive, and even more importantly, can have sentimental value that can never be compensated. Keep this in mind throughout the session, whether your subject is in the photo with the instrument, or not. Never ask them to do something that could harm or damage the instrument.

Every time I’ve been asked to create photos for album covers for musicians, head shots for websites, art to print and frame, or just to capture someone’s favorite hobby, my goal is to create a photo that they will love. One that will stay true to what they would naturally do with their instruments.
I hope these tips can help you create beautifully genuine musician portraits too. I would love to see your musician portraits in the comments!

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