HOME | GALLERY | WORKSHOPS | ASK GARRY! | BOOKS

Garry Black Photography

Question:

Garry,

I found your sight while searching for information on taking better pictures and getting rid of shadows.  I am taking wedding pictures for my niece and am hoping to give her great pictures! (yikes!)  I just ordered a bracket so that my flash won't sit directly on the camera.  It has the moveable arm so that when I take vertical pictures, I can move the flash up where it will be on top.  I also ordered a soft box which they said I could just Velcro on??? ( I have no idea what this looks like.)  I have a Pentax 35mm SLR with a bounce flash.  I have taken some vertical pictures that turned out great, but have also taken some where the top half of the picture or people were brighter than the bottom half. (this was when I bounced the flash from the ceiling) So I am afraid of messing up.  Will this soft box that I have ordered take care of this for me or am I still going to have to bounce the flash off the ceiling?  I have a choice of two rooms to take still pictures in. One room is on the main floor.  The north and east wall have windows and the west and south wall have no windows. (there is a divider that I can use that separates the room ...the divider runs north and south) Should I put the background on the south wall and have the window behind me? Should I use the divider so that light isn't coming from the east side?  How much space should I have between the camera and the subject and the subject and background?  The other room is in the basement with florescent lighting and just a couple of small windows.  Which room do you think would be best?

I hope that this makes since.  My main concern is that I don't get shadows, red eyes, and too much or too little light on my subjects.  I also bought a 58mm diffusion filter. Do I want to use this?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer:

The movable arm and the soft box will help you, and should give you very good results.  One thing that you didn't mention is what film speed you'd be using and how much ambient light you were planning on using. Are you going to pop and drag the shutter? Or just use the flash as the sole light source? The reason that your bounce images turned out brighter on top and darker on the bottom half is because you didn't have the flash bouncing completely off the ceiling. (it should be pointing straight up) Sounds like the flash was also directly hitting the people (sort of like slicing the picture in half). So the bounced light was hitting the bottom half, while the direct flash and bounce flash was hitting the top part of the picture.

As for rooms I'd take the room on the main floor, and then depending on what lighting techniques that I'd use, then I would determine where I'd set up. You can use the north window as a light source and use a reflector on the shadow side. There are so many possibilities that you have available to you, it really depends on the style of images that you wish to create. Unfortunately I can't give you an entire lighting workshop in an e-mail, it's something that you have to have a "hands on" approach. My best advice is, don't wait for the wedding to try your set ups. Go several times trying different techniques and exposures - Practice!!!

Good Luck,