Photo

    Camera flash is a photographer’s best friend
 

    This photo was taken using a home-made paper reflector & a Stroboframe flash bracket.
             I’ve previously mentioned that area light usage causes unwanted light spots. It’s especially noticeable on black and white photographs. This concerns colour photographs too. However we have to use a flash unit: there are many situations when this compact & powerful light source is necessary. Imagine you’re making a report in a restaurant where interior lighting is changing several times per minute from side to frontal, from extremely dark to glaringly bright, from warm produced by halogen lamps to that of the blue dusk. In such conditions one must be trying his luck by taking pictures without a flash.
Using a flash can reduce a hot summer afternoon’s sharp contrast when there is a profound shade in the foreground while the background is totally sunlit. No film can’t stand this. But it’s possible to use a flash to illuminate the shade from beneath & get a technically correct photo.
Modern flash units are very delicate & handy devices.  It is important to master their abilities.           
Flash units produce very hard, point light. On the border of light & shade it can result in a hard-edged black strip. It is especially noticeable if you use your camera in a vertical position for a vertical shot. This shadow appears because the object is illuminated only on one side from the lens while another side captured by the lens remains completely unlit. If you examine horizontal photographs carefully you’ll find the same black shadow there but it’s less noticeable as it is where we expect it to be, for example under one’s chin. Therefore you should make the object illuminated  by the flash from both sides toward the lens to get rid of a side shadow on vertical shots. The light source must be bigger than the lens. It’s easy to arrange.