sunday school: fill-in-the-flash

I know that many of us here are natural light shooters who adore super fast prime lenses like the magical 50mm f/1.8 (or f/1.4 if you're lucky).  Let's see the hands of those of us who have raised our noses ever so slightly whenever witnessing someone using their camera's built in flash.  Now let's see the hands of those of us who would much rather embrace the blur than use a flash.  Yeah, I thought so, and my hand is in the air along with many of you. 

Considering that our chosen symbol for the sisterhood is a beautiful big old flash bulb, I've decided to make friends with my flash and to apologize for all those years of neglect and contempt.  And you know what?  I've actually found that our flash (even the built-in camera one) IS our friend, and that if you take the time to figure out its capabilities, you can take better photos.

One situation in which a flash as simple as the one that came with your camera will come in quite handy is when you are shooting in bright glaring sunlight.  Unless you're shooting exclusively in the shade, you will find that many of your shots have harsh shadows.  You can minimize this by using just enough flash to fill in the shadows especially if you are shooting into the sun.  This is a technique called fill flash.

I played around with my aperture, shutter speed and flash compensation to get the photo above with fill flash.  Without the flash, the photo would have looked something like this.  Pretty dull, huh?  For those of you who love shooting into the sun for that pretty sun flare, try using flash next time, especially if you have a person in the foreground with their back to the sun.  Most digital cameras these days have either a fill flash feature or flash compensation feature that allows you to control the brightness of your flash .  You'll probably have to play around with your settings a bit before you get the result you want, but you'll probably find it well worth the effort.  I know I did.

Finding photos taken with flash in the Shutter Sisters Flickr group pool is like pulling teeth, but I did find this one by Angela (angs*photos), this lovely portrait (with the flash stopped down -1.3) by Kathy (work2snap) and this adorable baby shot by Lawyer Mama [Steph].  How about the rest of you?  Have any flash pointers, or images you want to share in which the flash proved to be your friend?

sunday school: how i learned to stop worrying and love the blur

I love natural light.  It is my illumination of choice when shooting photos.  However, since I don't have the power to keep the sun up high on the horizon or to crank up the moonlight to an acceptable level whenever I want, I sometimes find myself at the mercy of the glow from a lamp, candle, stagelight, chandelier, streetlight, cellphone, etc.  I'm sure many of you have also experienced this lack of supernatural power.  What's a Shutterbug Mama to do in a situation like this?  Put away the camera?  Use the flash? Crank-up-the-ISO-and-set-the-aperture-wide-open- then-underexpose-and-fix-the-shot-later?  I have to admit that the last option is the one I usually chose, often with *bleh* results.  That is until I finally came to my senses and learned to stop worrying and Love The Blur.

I came to the realization one day that sometimes life happens so much, so fast, and the light available to take it all in is so limited, as is the ability (for most of us, anyway) to bend the time-space continuum, that even a single moment in time comes out to be a blur.  And you know what?  That's okay.  If that's how life is, then that's how I want to capture it in that moment.

So now, instead of performing technical gymnastics to get a crisp shot, I simply slow down the shutter speed a few notches and let the shot be what it will be.  I now love doing long(ish) exposure photography, especially at night and especially with artificial light.  

And it's not always a lack of light that makes life blurry.  Spend 5 minutes with my daughter Cadence (or any kid, for that matter), and you'll know what I mean.  Sometimes the natural light is there, but when you're dealing with your own little whirlwind, it may not be enough to freeze the frame, and sometimes a blur is the most appropriate way to capture the playfulness and energy of that moment.

Whatever the situation may be, it's so liberating To Embrace The Blur, To Love It, To Make It My Friend.  Cuzamora,  Shama-Lama Mama and  Molly |A Certain Slant of Light know what I'm talking about.

How about you?  Do you Love The Blur too?  Let's see your favorite Blurry Moments!