Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Embracing the Flash

I've been reading about a number of pretty amazing and accomplished photographers who proclaim the evils of the flash bulb as ruining what is natural about color in a picture. Hmmm...
I admit that I have been trying hard to be a follower of this doctrine.
 2.13.10 (22)
I have set my kids and my guy in front of my large bay window at precisely 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. when the light is supposed to be the best.  I have avoided shooting when the sun is at its peak, insisted on racing outside on a "photo excursion" when the clouds cast shadows over the daylight rays.  I have passionately hunted for the ideal shaded light locations - alleys and such.  And I have captured many a perfect expression or pose that looks fabulous in the viewfinder and disappointingly blurry on my computer screen. 
Now, if I were the manual reading type - which, I am sorry to report, I am not - I would have figured out what my brother did in one short week of borrowing my camera: full manual control with a faster shutter speed, a shallow depth of field, and rapid fire shooting would yield better results.  I'd have that natural light photograph in its purist form.  Forgive me for being a photojournalist first, a documentary photographer second, and a photographic fine artist last.
And so I am returning to the covenant of the flash-assisted photographer.  I will use light to my advantage instead of lamenting over the shadows cast by overpopulation in the neighborhood and the loss of the floods of natural light my sheer curtained home used to contain.  Heck, I might even read a manual about studio lighting... nah, I'll take a class.  I'm visual-kinesthetic that way.
Flash is just another light with which I will write, and that is, by definition a photograph.  I get it, I embrace it, I admit it, I love it.

1 comment:

Taylor said...

LOL, do what you need to do to get that shot! Feeding the passion is more importtant than how we do it.