Original subtitles

So we've shown you a practical demonstration about

this on-camera flash technique, but I wanna

help further demystify the intimidation that comes with

using on-camera flash.

By showing you some examples and rewriting what

we already discussed, so it can really, really

fit well with you, right in your brain

there, ready to rock with your next gig

when you're using on-camera flash.

Now, many people actually say, well, look, I'm

a natural light shooter, I'm just gonna use

ambient light, I have fast lenses, my camera

can just, I can crank up the ISO,

and I've got great quality.

The problem is, when you're photographing at a

reception like this, for example, this may be

the ambient light that you are using.

Now, yes, you can do a custom white

balance, it's gonna be very difficult to get

this perfect when there's sort of red lights

and blue lights and DJ lights, it's all

over the place.

Now, so here's the thing that we, the

couple have spent, and the family have spent

lots of money on the ambience, and many

of us will put a couple of lights

and light stands and strobes, and then just,

poof, just literally kill all the ambience, and

yes, get clean light, but it's harder, you

need more gear, and it just becomes a

bit cumbersome.

And the main reason, of course, like I

said before, is simply that we're killing the

ambience.

But with this on-camera flash technique, we

also said, just to reiterate, we want to

point the flash in the direction of where

the nose is pointing.

So what does that mean?

Well, here's what we do.

So we grab the flash, so in this

case, I'm photographing this way, and what I'm

gonna do is both their noses are pointing

to camera right.

So what I do is I simply move

the flash 90 degrees to the right.

So as you can see, that's by shooting

a horizontal photograph, and this is the photograph

that we get, and that's exactly what we

did.

So what I love about this, so I'll

just put that there so we know where

that's pointing, but if you look at it,

I said that if two people are interacting,

usually in one direction of light, one person

will suffer.

Now, in this case, he's not suffering, per

se.

We've got masculine split lighting on him, and

we've got short lighting on her.

They're interacting, and the light still looks good.

So remember that when you're actually doing this

technique, the more people you have, you've gotta

make sure that they're turned a certain way

so the light can hit everybody.

Because traditionally, if you're facing the camera with

a bunch of friends, for some reason, we

all get in a bit of a semicircle.

So they're all fanned out this way.

So if you bounce the flash in this

direction, it hits a wall over here and

then comes back.

If people are in a bit of a

semicircle, they're actually gonna cause a shadow on

this person.

So what has to happen is if you're

photographing in this direction, then at the very,

very least, go shoulder to shoulder, or you

can hug closely, but make sure there's flat,

and then they turn slightly biased to this

wall where the flash is actually bouncing from,

and that will help you minimize it.

Well, in a moment, I'll tell you, actually,

if you've got a lot of people and

you're at an event or at a venue,

what do you do then?

Well, I'll come to that.

Now, how did I learn these techniques?

How did I actually learn to bounce a

flash?

Well, when I started, it's 27 years ago,

as of 2020, every single photograph was taken

with a flash because basically, we would print

our own color prints in a dark room,

and the color, the flash would just clean

up the light, no matter whether it was

yellow or it was green or fluorescent and

all those different colors, the flash would just

give us a nice, clean fill.

So we'd never really use it as a

main light unless it was actually for the

church or the reception, but if I was

using ambient light like window light or outdoors,

there was just a little pop of flash,

and I would bounce it in different ways.

Now, recently, actually, it was really funny because

recently, I had a client of mine who

ended up following me, but I had photographed

her wedding like 22 years ago.

Well, actually, no, what was it, 20, at

this, well, back then, it was about 22

years ago, and she posted a photograph of

me photographing, and this is the only one

that exists of me photographing because as a

photographer, you don't get many shots of yourself

working, and certainly, if you were not in

the educational space as I wasn't back then,

it just wouldn't happen, but she tweeted this

photograph of me, and in this case, I

was bouncing the flash upwards.

This is actually a Metz flash, but it

was quite funny, and you can actually see

me putting a filter on the lens.

That would have been my soft focus filter,

which is actually really funny because back then,

to make some softness, like for Gaussian blur,

we didn't have Photoshop, so many photographers would

put Vaseline on a filter and then place

that over the lens.

What I would do, I was actually smart

about it.

That got a little sticky.

I put clear nail polish, and then I

would paint it in and then put it

over the lens, and then I would get

this really cool, fun look, but anyway, I

spent my early years learning how to bounce

flash and make it not look like it,

so now let's go through the examples again

in this room right now and show you

what we discussed practically with Lisa and Dylan,

this flash technique.

Now, so when we start, we will do

full flash.

That's basically you pointing to the subject and

you're just going bang, okay?

So in this case, we're photographing the actual

client like this.

Obviously, it's a demonstration.

There's no retouching here.

There's nothing at all.

It's purely out of the camera, but the

flash is just hitting us straight.

That's a rookie mistake, and I'm telling you,

you may be, at this point in your

career, I'm telling you there's a better way,

and you've already seen it, but we're about

to continue to discuss it.

Now, this next photograph, we tilt the flash

head up 45 degrees, okay?

So that's what we're doing here, okay?

That's how that photograph was taken.

Fine, well, that's one way.

Now, this next photograph is tilting up 90

degrees.

It's as simple like that, and as you

can see, we're starting to get shadows underneath

the eyes.

Usually, you would get more of those shadows

underneath the eyes.

We often call those raccoon eyes, and obviously

not very flattering.

Some of us do this.

We point the flash this way.

We bring the card out.

Most speed lights will have this system, and

we point the flash 45 degrees on a

bit of an angle, and this is how

this next photograph was taken, okay?

Exactly like that, onto her, okay?

Now, this one is tilt up, card out

90 degrees.

Bang, like that.

That's how that was taken, all right?

So we're there, fantastic.

That looks okay compared to the other ones.

Now, this one is tilt up, angle right

45 degrees.

So if you can see that close-up

camera there like this, and that was there.

Now, we're starting to get a bit of

modeling on the face.

You can actually see that beautiful loop lighting,

and there's a bit of dimension there.

It's actually starting to look pretty good, all

right?

Now, this one is tilt up, angle left

45 degrees, okay?

So we're basically doing that for her.

Now, this one is tilting back 45 degrees,

and you might say that's really silly because

you're pointing the flash away from the client.

Well, you have to remember that the flash

is not the light source.

The flash is not the light source.

It's where you're bouncing it off.

So this is a small light source.

If you're bouncing it off a wall, now

it becomes a very large light source, and

it works well.

Now, let me show you and explain my

technique again.

Here's what we do.

What we do, we bounce the flash 90

degrees in the direction of where the nose

is pointing of the person that you want

to feature.

In this case, now she's facing us perfectly,

but now if she turns her face, our

camera right, or basically to her left, her

nose is pointing this way.

So we actually angle the flash 90 degrees

in the direction of where her nose is

pointing.

So now, again, the speed light is not

the light source.

It's bouncing off the wall, ricocheting back, illuminating

this side of the face.

It does not hit all of that side,

therefore creating a bit of a shadow.

We get both eye sockets completely lit.

There's beautiful depth and dimension, and life is

good.

Now, what happens though when you tilt up

and then no angle, but 90 degrees on

the other side?

So if you can imagine now this next

photograph, I'm not gonna bounce it in the

direction of the nose is pointing.

I'm gonna bounce it the other way.

And of course, as you probably already know,

we're gonna get broad lighting.

And I'm not saying that's terrible, but that's

not gonna be as good as of course

this direction.

Let's look at the difference now again.

We've got full flash, bang on right there.

Poof, deer in the headlights.

This one, well now we're making it look

like a softbox and that's all on camera.

It's crazy how this works.

And I'm telling you, I've shot well over

1,000 weddings and this is a technique

that I've used my whole career.

I learned it probably in the first, I'd

say six months to a year of me

photographing after getting results back and playing with

my Met's flash and how it bounces and

what would be the way to go.

But this was the way to go.

Okay, now let's talk about this.

If your subject is facing you perfectly, and

then you do no tilt, no angle 90

degrees to her left or camera right, no,

what are we doing here?

No, we're illuminating that way.

So we're doing this.

Okay, so we're bouncing off here, illuminating this

side and then we've got a shadow on

this side.

So we're basically split lighting her.

Now again, that's not terrible.

It's actually pretty good, better than going full

flash.

But the minute I basically take one step

to the right, her nose is pointing to

the left without any change of her angle

or positioning of her face.

And this is what we get.

So no tilt, no angle, 90 degrees to

our left and her right.

And that's how we do it.

Again, the flash bounces off that wall, ricochets

off the wall, illuminates the side of the

face that's furthest away from the camera, therefore

causing a shadow on this side, therefore creating

the short side.

It's sort of funny because we're not really

shooting on the short side, we're creating the

short side as we're shooting it.

So to sum it up again, whenever you're

at a reception venue, you're at an event

space and you wanna use this technique, then

what you wanna do is expose for the

ambience first.

So, and also what I do is I

actually have the ambience out of focus.

I wanna make sure that I get the

exposure that I want and I may start

with about one stop under what I want

the actual ambience to end up looking like.

Because of course, once I bounce the flash,

it is gonna feel a little bit of

light and residual light is gonna fall on

the background.

So you just gotta test that.

Once you've got that exposure, it's gonna work.

So don't forget that, say for example, this

particular exposure is going to be something like

250 speed, could be F4, it could be

two and a half thousand ISO, something like

that.

Well, there's my exposure, I'm done because I

wanna be able to capture that beautiful ambience

and my exposure will probably not even change

for the whole night unless I'm playing with

a wider aperture, like a 1.8 and

I wanna do something a little bit different,

but most of my shots will be that

exposure because the dance floor, for example, would

be quite dark and the perimeter, the chandeliers,

little sconces on the wall will actually be

that kind of exposure.

And again, I might go a little bit

darker than exposing for it perfectly.

Now, yes, there is gonna be the light

source itself that is gonna be blowing out.

I just, I wanna expose as in I

want the exposure for the result of that

light, not actually getting detail in that light

source because that's just unrealistic for what we're

doing.

You will never, if you're exposing for a

light source, everything will go darker and that's

just not, again, not practical.

Now, I wanna tell you something as well

that if you're using this technique and you

are trying to bounce off a glass wall,

a mirror, you are gonna get this.

You are gonna get weird sort of cut

lines on the face and the shadow.

You're gonna get these weird shadows on the

nose and all that kind of stuff.

So just remember and be practical that this

particular technique is not gonna work with full

glass or mirrors all around.

What you can do is if there's a

break in the glass wall, if this, it

could be even like you put a reflector

up and bounce that off all night.

It could be just one table is, the

broader table is got a white sort of

cloth over it, then great, you can actually

bounce that off all night.

There's always an answer.

And we discussed in our practical demonstration of

Lisa and Dylan, if there was a red

wall or a blue wall or anything like

that, then of course you just wouldn't use

this technique.

Could you bounce off a reflector?

Could you use some kind of modifiers on

there?

Well, of course you can.

And I have no problem with using modifiers.

I just find that many of us use

all this gear when we don't have to,

once we learn techniques like this.

So in this case, I simply bounced deliberately

on a mirror.

That's the result that I got.

Then I turned her face to her right

or camera left.

And then I bounced the flash in that

direction.

It bounces off that wall, comes back, illuminates

her face, causing a shadow on this side,

beautiful cheekbone and jawline, catch lights in the

eyes.

And we've made one on camera flash look

like a softbox, which is beautiful.

And I really, really hope by now you're

thinking, oh my God, this is life-changing.

And it is.

This is an incredible technique that will liberate

you from a lot of gear that you

bring that you just don't need.

So let's now talk about what happens if

you wanna photograph vertically.

Well, we discussed this in our practical demonstration,

but let's go one step further.

When you have say someone, a bride or

a groom or anyone entering into a venue,

and they're walking in, well, you're probably gonna

wanna shoot them vertically because of course they're

walking in, you want them full length.

So this technique, how do you do it

when it's vertical?

Well, first of all, let me show you

the bad way, the incorrect way.

All right, so here we have front flash.

All right, so here we are, we've got

front flash.

It is just bang, there it is.

You can see that really unflattering shadow behind

her.

And by the way, while we're here, I

want you to understand something too.

This is bad in two ways.

One, full flash, it looks flat, unflattering.

Also, she's a gorgeous figure, but if you

look at her legs, her left leg is

forward.

We always, now we said in our posing

demonstrations and our discussions that usually what's gonna

always work for you, a common denominator is

if the front leg is bent and is

forward, it's going to look better pretty much

for anyone, guys or girls.

So in this case, if I wait for

her to walk and always click just before

that right leg touches the ground, so in

other words, she's walking along like this, right?

She's walking, it's click, click, click.

It's never gonna be like this, like she

is there.

It's always gonna be like that.

So now, here's what I do.

I'm gonna shoot vertically now.

So if my camera's gonna be like this

and her nose is pointing this way, well,

then I have to actually turn my speed

light so it bounces off this wall.

Does that make sense?

So she's walking and bang, look at that

difference.

So right now, that camera is vertical.

So tilt flash it up 90 degrees.

So let's just do that again in a

couple of actions, 90 degrees, then we photograph

vertically.

We point the flash to the right, so

it's this way and there we've got, obviously

it's a very dark venue.

We've got 160 per second, F4, 6400 ISO,

120 mil in TTL flash.

And it's amazing that TTL flash works that

well.

I mean, millions of dollars have been spent

and countless hours of R&D to work

out how does this camera actually talk to

this speed light and how does it all

work?

How does it know?

I'm like, and I'll be honest with you,

I don't really care about the science behind

it but all I care about is the

fact that it works.

Now in this particular demonstration, this was done

in front of several hundred people when I

was doing a tour several years ago and

people said, well, all right, Jerry, okay, that

flash technique is great but what about actually

bouncing off a wall that's maybe 30, 40,

50, 60 feet away?

This one from memory, you know, because I

know my flashes so well, this would have

been maybe compensation, maybe plus 1.7. In

other words, I've got my exposure, 160th of

a second, F4, 6400 ISO.

If I took a shot with no flash,

she would be dark but you would see

her faintly.

Then what I do is, because now there

is no ambience here, there's nothing, I need

to, I'm using this as my main light,

that's it.

If I use this on TTL, well, of

course, if I'm bouncing off a wall 30,

40 feet away, then it's gonna come back

30, 40 feet, that's 80 feet of light.

Think about that for a second.

Now, if I compensate as in, this is

gonna give me the output that the camera

is suggesting as in TTL through the lens,

I wanna add more power.

So I compensate and I will just press

on the plus sign on my flash and

it'll be different for every speed light.

And I'm like, I want one plus 1

.7, call it units of power above what

it's actually suggesting to me because I wanna

throw that light over here and throw it

back and hit it here again.

And it just simply works.

Look at the difference between amateur and professional.

And with one speed light, that's the exciting

thing about it.

We can be liberated of our gear.

And I'm telling you, I've probably used a

strobe in a reception with a light stand

maybe once in my career and I didn't

even need it because I sort of didn't

trust my gut.

I'm like, oh, these walls or it's so

far away.

And I'm like, I surprised myself every time

I shoot that this actual technique works 90

% of the time.

And again, to reiterate, why wouldn't it work?

Because you've got blue walls, red walls, green

walls, you've got nothing else to bounce off

and all that kind of stuff.

And of course you can use your modifiers,

you can actually have the flash off camera,

you can have an assistant, do all those

things.

But trust me, this will change your whole

technique and liberate you of the gears we

discussed.

Now, let me show you a couple more

examples before we wind up this part of

the conversation.

This is out of camera, there's no retouching.

Here's a guy doing a speech, the best

man, it's full flash.

There it is, full flash, bang.

This is simply straight on.

And I did not do this deliberately per

se.

I did it deliberately for teaching purposes because

I nailed the shot that I want.

I thought while I'm there, you know what?

This would be a good time to actually

show my technique.

Now, if you look at this, here is

me actually photographing and what I've done here,

you can see that the pillar is next

to me because I've got girls with a

blue dress, I've got a blue shirt with

a guy there, I've got another blues in

at the moment, who knew?

We've got a blue T-shirt over here.

So I don't wanna bounce off the people

because I'm gonna get a blue cast.

So I positioned myself where that column is.

And then because I wanna spread because the

ceiling's quite low, I actually bounce the flash

in this direction.

So basically it's gonna on a bit of

an angle.

So it sort of bounces off the pillar,

comes back and have a look at the

difference now.

This looks like a softbox and it's very,

very even.

The ambience is exposed for quite nicely.

And look at the difference on how disgusting

that full flash was on the top left

and how clean that was.

Now, here's another very, very important point.

Whenever you're using this technique, and as I

said, you're bouncing the flash in the direction

of where a nose is pointing and you're

doing this.

Every so often, this will happen.

You'll see how this particular shot, all their

noses, they're obviously looking at something.

They're actually seeing my same day slideshow.

Every single person in this room, they're all

pointing their face that way, their nose that

way.

So therefore, my technique was this.

I'm gonna bounce that flash 90 degrees in

that direction.

Every so often, part of the image, a

third of it, a quarter, it could be

even a half.

These guys are so bright because somehow it's

bouncing off and the residual light is hitting

them.

It could be that some of the flash,

because I'm shooting wide angle and then I'm

pointing my lens this way, the light is

actually, there's a double whammy.

Some of the light's hitting them and then

the light's also hitting them from bouncing back

and coming back.

So here's what you do.

All you have to do is you just

ping it back a little bit.

So this is what we do.

Just slightly back.

So at the moment, I'm telling you to

do this.

If you get too much light on one

side, you simply just bounce it back a

little bit.

And that's how I achieved from this to

this.

You see how much more even that is?

Even it's more even here.

But again, look how many people are in

that room.

This was using one on-camera flash.

So what happens if you are shooting a

wide angle and what happens if you're photographing

an event?

Let's say you've got people dancing on the

dance floor.

Well, yeah, this might not work because you've

got too many people casting a shadow on

the person next to them and then that

might be an issue.

So how did I get this with one

on-camera flash?

Well, here's what I did.

I simply pointed back like this and I

bounced it back this way.

Sometimes it's 45 degrees.

It's in a way where it's gonna be

above my head.

All right, so it's gonna not hit my

head.

It'll be bouncing back, bang, and then flooding

what's in front of me.

So that is how I photograph that image

and also that image.

But again, when I start narrowing down the

amount of people that I'm photographing, in this

case, I've only got the bride and the

groom.

I'm focusing on the bride giggling at the

groom.

Well, as you can see, I've got the

short side on both of them there, which

basically means that I bounced the flash in

the direction of where the nose of the

bride is pointing and that's what I did

just there.

And this is also what I did here.

You can see this is the bride and

the groom with a set of grandparents and

you can see the shadow very clearly on

this side, which basically means that shooting vertically,

I would have done this, okay?

I'm basically bouncing off that wall.

It's coming back on this side, causing a

shadow on this side and life is good.

All right, let's show you another one.

This one here, you've got a bit of

a subtle shadow on this side.

Well, this one was done horizontally.

So I'm bouncing the flash, okay?

In this particular direction, which works really well.

So remember, when two people are interacting, you

wanna bounce the flash in the direction of

the person that you wanna feature the most.

In this case, well, the lighting is actually

quite even for both of them, but what

I've done is, I've actually bounced the flash

on the person with the most endearing look.

Now, they've both got a beautiful smiles and

all that kind of stuff, but I bounced

the flash this way.

Because she's turned her face way, way, way

this way, we don't get that obvious shadow

or that short side.

But you can see though, I've exposed for

the ambience.

I've got the chandelier and the reflection of

the mirror.

I've got the purple in the background and

I've actually made this look actually really even.

So it works.

This one, they're dancing on the dance floor.

What do I do?

This shot was taken with my flash like

this, okay?

That's what I did right behind because there's

too many people on wide angle.

I don't know what I'm bouncing off.

This is a cleaner way of doing it

and you'll be surprised on how this works.

Sometimes what you'll do is you'll shoot on

TTL and you'll find a rhythm.

Like in the dance floor, there's going to

be, like you might be shooting at 4

,000 ISO, 250 speed, 4.5. There's your

foundation exposure.

And then you'll find that you're shooting backwards.

But because the ceiling is so far away,

you might be actually compensating one stop more

output on your flash than what the camera

is suggesting.

And that's how we do it.

This next one, this is out of camera.

Nothing's been done to this image.

It's out of camera.

And how do we do this?

This was a quick grab shot.

Basically, everyone said, hey, I want to photograph.

The bride said, I want to photograph.

What do I do?

I'm like, I've got one on camera flash.

I've got all these people.

I've got no modifier with me.

No problem.

All I did was I point the flash

backwards.

I had Melissa, actually my wife, hold the

reflector behind me.

So think of it like a halo.

It literally was sort of circling my head

and shoulders.

And then now the speed light now is

no longer my light source.

I simply bounce behind and now this becomes

flooded.

And it's an easy way to get beautiful,

soft, even lighting on that many people.

In fact, you can see the reflector, the

reflection of the reflector off his glasses there

as well.

But it's just a very, very easy way

to actually work, which I think is actually

really cool.

Now, don't forget, sometimes you will have natural

reflectors in your environment.

So in this case, the bride and groom

cutting the cake, but I can see that

the light is bouncing in the corner backwards.

Well, of course, I'm not going to suggest

that the bride and groom cut the cake

facing me this way.

I know I'm going to go around the

corner.

Even though my flash is on, I turned

it off, photographed this way and I've got

that perfect bounce.

It's just beautiful.

And I exposed to the ambience.

Luckily, the light on them also was the

correct exposure to maintain my ambience in the

background.

While I was there and while I'm here,

I thought, wait a second, if I can

shoot this way, well, that's a boring photograph,

but I can expose for that light.

And then all of a sudden I've got

a really cool effect in this particular environment.

So what a journey we've been on in

talking about literally what has been told by

many people to me is what a life

changing on-camera flash technique that you are

sharing.

And it really is.

You often go to a reception and spend

maybe 20 minutes trying to work out your

strobes and your flashes and everything like that.

And you could get good results.

And I'm saying that's fine, but one, it's

cumbersome.

It takes more time, more money, more energy

to do that.

And I just feel like if you can

get these results with one on-camera flash

and it's easy and maintain the ambience that

families have spent tens of thousands of dollars

on, why wouldn't you?

To remind you, here is an amateur approach,

full flash, beautiful girl in bad light, not

so beautiful, so to speak, compared to us

doing this.

Her nose is pointing that way.

We bounce the flash 90 degrees in the

direction of where her nose is pointing.

And you can use this technique all day

long and you will look at all your

results and thinking, oh my goodness, all these

years it's been like that.

And now I can make my work look

like a beautiful softbox and life is good.

So guys, practice this technique.

It will take time to learn.

I'm telling you, you will be surprised in

how quickly you'll learn it.

And then you'll start to work out the

nuances of it and you'll learn that you

can't bounce off mirrors, you can't bounce off

glass walls and all those kinds of things.

You'll learn when you bounce off colored walls

it might be an issue.

Those nuances you'll just have to learn.

I'm teaching you knowledge, but wisdom, you just

sort of have to earn that right.

So enjoy this technique, hope it liberates you

and enjoy the process.