The ten principals of flash photography

The ten principals of Flash Photography

These apply to all types of light including natural light.
1. There are only two types of light, hard light and soft light. Hard light is the sort of light you would get at midday in a sunny place. Very contrasting light. The imagine it’s a cloudy day then the light becomes soft.

2. The closer the light is to the subject, the softer the light. And so the further away the light is to the subject the harder the light.

3 As you move the light source from the subject, the light intensity drops very quickly. If you double the distance the light is from the subject you quarter the amount of light that reaches the subject.

4. The harder the light is the more contrast you have. Contrast is highlights and shadows. The harder the light the further away from each other the highlights and shadows become. So in soft light the highlights and shadows are closer and have more variations in between.

5. A shadow will have a hard edge with high contrast from a hard light. It will have a soft edge and low contrast from a soft light

6. Light can be direct or indirect / bounced. A direct light comes straight from the light source. Indirect light is often bounced off something like a ceiling or reflector. By reflecting the light you are changing the size of the light source.

7. Light travels in straight lines, unless it meets an obstruction. So particles of light behave like snooker balls, they bounce off objects. Grids are objects that go over lights to channel the light to prevent it spreading out and as hard light is becoming more popular, so are these.

8. Light coming from the side of a subject will show more texture than a front on light. You can see this in landscape photography, when photographers tend to like early morning or late evening light, when the light is coming from the side, which gives more texture.

9. Flash light varies in speed. The speed of a flash is measured using it’s T number. If you are capturing moving subjects, like sports then you need very fast flashes so that you freeze the action

10. If using flash outside, especially on a sunny day you will need a much more powerful flash than you would indoors. So for indoor photography you don’t need that much power from your flash.