Way back in the dark ages (2008-2010 or so) I got on a kick reading about using off camera flash. Strobist was popular and I did a lot of reading, but didn't have the funds to get a flash that I could use. At one point I rented a canon 580ex speedlite for an event I was photographing. I tried a few things, but this was back in the day and the only advice I got was "put a plastic diffuser on the lens" and I even made my own homemade magbounce (an attachment that fits on top of the lens and directs the light forward)
A few years ago (could be quite a few years ago?) I went looking and the landscape said "go get yourself a Yonguno flash" and I almost, almost pulled the trigger on it. I have a lot of hobbies and interests though so it went on the back burner for a while.
I got tapped recently to take some headshots for folks at work. I've done this a few times before. In general, the thing I tell myself is, I take candids of people when I am at an event, but I don't really do posed headshots (or weddings). I know that headshots is a skill and I know that I'm not really that kind of photographer.
Well for whatever reason, this time I said, well, it's just skills right? Why can't I learn this on youtube?
I feel like I have two big things to learn. One is posing and interacting with subjects to get good smiles and facial expressions. That whole "just make a connection with your subject" thing. That whole topic is MASSIVE and giving me anxiety the more I learn about it. The anxiety is that there are so many tips and tricks and things to remember and do and what poses work for males vs females and what things to say to get people to smile genuinely except for when you don't want a big cheesy smile in a portrait and whew it's a lot.
I think when it comes to that topic, I just need experience. I am holding off asking folks to pose for me until I get the flash (it should be here tomorrow) because I want to practice with the flash.
The second thing I need to learn is how to use a flash. At some point in my research I discovered bounced TTL flash. Apparently it used to really suck and was unreliable (or maybe photographers just didn't trust it in the age of film). But now, there are many many adherents. And I thought they made some interesting points.
I discovered the Godox system, so I bought a used v860iii for my camera on eBay (that's the one that is arriving tomorrow). I don't have the time to learn, or the money to buy, the equipment I would need to take the flash off camera. So I am sticking with TTL bounce flash.
I found Neil van Niekirk's articles on TTL bounce flash. https://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/bouncing-flash/
And the Black Foamie Thing: https://neilvn.com/tangents/about/black-foamie-thing/
Reading Neil's articles (and related youtube videos) makes sense to me. I understand why I was struggling to get good results with my previous experiments with the Canon speedlite I rented. He's got some good rules of thumb that seem easy to internalize and figure out.
Today at work a co-worker brought in a Canon 10D with a 50mm 1.8 and a 420EX speedlite. Yes, a Canon 10D, in the Year of Our Lord 2024. He just got it, it was his father's and sentimental. He let me play around with taking some portraits with the flash. And immediately I found it hard to think about and difficult to figure out how to use it effectively. Part of that is the optical viewfinder and tiny screen, extremely slow review times, and the fact that the 420EX doesn't swivel backwards to the right enough to hit the right wall that I wanted to hit. It was a start, but it was disconcerting.
And the more I think about it, the more disconcerting it feels. This begins my journey into stepping off the deep end. I feel unmoored. Let me explain.
For the longest time the thing I did was.... I don't even call it finding good light. Taking photos, I don't think about light at all. I think about good compositions. Arranging the subject in the frame is the most important thing, the only thing, and so if I come upon a situation with "bad light" I mostly register that as part of "bad composition" and I move on.
But with a flash? That I can control? I can decide where the light goes? It's stepping from 2 dimensional chess to 3 dimensional chess.
You are asking me to think about controlling light itself. I have to decide where the light comes from. I don't think I can express how weird this feels. I am not God! Mankind was not meant to interfere in the affairs of heaven!
I feel like an elderly caveman who has just been given fire. Yes fire is cool and all, I am looking forward to more of these tasty steaks, but at the same time, we got along perfectly fine without it for years.
Then on top of realizing I don't have a fucking clue about light (how can I not understand LIGHT I have been taking photos for over 40 years for goodness sakes) I have to figure out how to talk to people I am trying to take a photo of and direct them and move them around like they are puppets and I am a marionette.
The part of my brain that "takes photos" is nearly 100 percent non verbal. I cannot talk to other people while I am taking photos. Somehow I need to take all of this stuff I am learning about flash and all of this stuff I am learning about posing and interacting with people and systematize it and learn and cram it into my brain hole. Very fast, apparently. I have less than a month!
What is irritating is that I'm going to do fine. AND I am not going to be perfect.
I am both very excited to learn new things and extremely burnt out at the thought of it all.
If I had to explore exactly why I'm feeling burnt out, [Editors note: it's about here that I realized I'm turning this blog post into a therapy session, sorry to drag you along] it's probably because of the mountain of photos I have not edited yet. It's a mountain because I was somewhat on top of everything and then my son was in the hospital for a ruptured appendix and everything photo editing went out the window. I even tried to edit photos in the hospital, which was completely useless.
Since then I have taken photos for about a year but I have edited very few. I just dump the photos off into folders that are increasingly chaotic. Not to mention the video clips I keep thinking I should be editing (and if there is anything more time consuming than editing photos, it's editing video.)
To summarize:
I love taking photos
I'm incredibly good at it
I know nothing about two aspects of photography that I'm going to need to know soon
I'm so good at photography, it's getting kinda boring
Maybe that's the rut I'm stuck in
Oh, and to top it all off! While I am bitching and still have you here. I have no way of sharing my photography! 99 percent of the stuff I do is family and friends. People! Can't post to Facebook! Facebook will train their AI on your photos. It feels ethically delinquent to post photos where AI can grab them freely. Can't post to Flickr! I forgot my password. Can't send photos to people with Google Drive! I'm running out of google drive space. Can't post photos of my kids on the public internet! There's informed consent issues with doing that. Can't print my photos, the printer is packed up in the closet! And the new laser printer has a crummy RIP so everything comes out banded in a weird way. Augh!
Still excited for the flash to get here tomorrow.