In this assignment we finally get to use a flash. Not the little rinky dink pop-up flash on our cameras but one of the big attachable flashes borrowed from the Journalism department. Oooh, a Vivitar 285. Impressive, no. This is a fully manual flash where i have to dial in my own ISO settings and aperture depending on the distance between me and my subject. Not too difficult once i got the hang of it. The tricky part is remembering to change the settings whenever i change distance. Ugh.
The assignment is to show case my attempts at several different styles of flash: direct (harsh), bounce (non-direct), and fill (slow shutter speed to let in ambient light). We were also allowed to use the light box flash in the studio. I had the most fun and frustrations with the studio and my daughter, Morgan.
The photos below are the ones i edited and turned in for my assignment. They are also my favorites.
The photos below were taken in the studio at UAF. In these photos, i had a direct flash on the right with a fill behind me, to the left:
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| Lucky first shot. Morgan was turned toward the flash. |
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| After approximately 15-20 minutes in the studio, Morgan was no longer having fun. I love this photo because of the use of reflection and her sad face. Terrible i know but i do love this picture of her. The light set up was the same with some tweaking so the fill light would not reflect in the mirror. |
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| Another reflection photo but with Morgan in her Halloween costume. She started having more fun once i gave her the freedom to play more with her movements. Lighting was not changed in this photograph. |
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| I decided to do a more traditional style portrait of her in her costume. I just happened to catch her with her face turned toward the flash with her eyes closed. |
Using my antiquated flash, i did a comparison of direct (first photo) flash versus bounce (second photo). These photos were taken in my very, very dark kitchen. Jeff seems a little washed out in the direct flash. I love the contrasts in the second photo. I bounced the flash off my white ceiling:
These next two photos were taken at Wescott Pool in North Pole. The lighting is quite horrible so i was pretty excited to be able to use my borrowed flash to take pictures of Morgan and her friend, Katie, during their last week of summer swimming lessons.
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| Morgan and Katie in their matching swimsuits and goggles. Twins. |
