Diffused Flash

GENERAL INFO ABOUT FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY

1 print due May 2
The effect of unmediated flash can be harsh. For this assignment, you will need to put something between your flash and your subject. If you are shooting in the studio, you may wish to use an umbrella to shoot through or to bounce off of. If you are shooting in the world, you will need to either bounce your flash off of the ceiling or a wall, use a bounce card or a soft box. You can build a soft box using foam core and some sort of translucent paper. You can also use a styrofoam coffee cup stuck on the end of your flash. This makes a cheap diffuser which works quite well. There are also a wide variety of fancy flash accessories available on the open market, but these can be quite expensive and may not even work as well as a coffee cup or a clean white sock.

Unless your flash and camera can work together using a TTL metering system, you will have to test out your rig or use a flashmeter to determine the proper exposure.

This basement photograph was made using a homemade softbox taped onto the head of a handheld flash. You can see the rectangular shape of the softbox reflected in the eyeglasses of the model. A softbox can easily be made with foamcore and tape. For a layer of diffusion, use tracing paper or vellum. You can line the inside of your homemade softbox with tinfoil or just leave it white inside. Take a light reading with a flash meter or experiment to find the best exposure.