Light Falleth From Heaven - Godox Lux Junior

According to our inner senses. We see it in the sky, we try to emulate it in our dwellings, and we usually shoot our photos this way.

Good news for the outdoor shooters - unless you live in Wigan there will be sunlight from above at some point of the year. Even if there are clouds, it will shine on the top of them and they’ll let a lovely even light down for your landscape. You need not take strobes to the Rocky Mountains.

Good also for the event and stage shooters who are going to get what the management provides anyway - and in most cases it comes down from the ceiling in some form. You might have to fill in for strong facial hollows but that is what flash and reflectors are for.

The event and people shooter who does use flash has a problem - if they opt for the easy solution of a flash in the hot shoe ( TTL and just keep shootin’ ) they really only get top-down light if they have some way of getting the flash way up there - to look way down here. Several solutions:

1. A light stand, wireless trigger, and semi-fixed shooting position. Set it up, test it out, and go corral the customers before the drink sets in.
2. An assistant on a ladder with a flash and a wireless trigger. They can chase about with you to cover different spots. Insure them for workers comp for the day they fall off the ladder.
3. Point the flash up to the ceiling and bounce the light down to the subject. Good if the ceiling is low and white - problematical if it is a long way away or painted some weird colour. Bounce flash is an exercise in optics, physics, and geometry, so if you have a TTL option with it - that is the smart choice.

All this is fine if you can pace your work - if you are in a frantic grip-and-grin situation, you have to fall back to the old press standards: f/8, 8 feet, and 1/80th second shutter speed. Flash faces forward and the result is illustration - not art.

This is fine if you are shooting landscape orientation, but if you’re shooting portrait ( or magazine cover, as I prefer to call it ) the flash is never going to make anyone look good - it will be canted in from one side of the image.

The only camera maker that ever made a side-tilting flash I remember was Sony - with one of their first digital offerings. The flash was plugged into the hot shoe but could be released to lay over to the left side of the camera and still be in a good position for the MC shot.

I have adapted the idea with a new flash - the retro fan-flash that can be positioned on a bar at the left side of the camera. It connects to the camera with a PC socket and can either be auto-flash or manual. I really do use the old 8/8/80/routine and add 800 as ISO. It is as fast as a Speed Graphic and you don’t have to flip double dark-slide holders.

Some purists will point out that flash is an intrusion - but when you are looking for Duke-In-Love-Nest-Scandal
 images, the explosion of light makes for a much better seller…  

Text and Images by Richard Stein