Balls aren’t the only things that bounce

Hey everyone,

Because photography is a 2 dimensional media we rely on shadows to add depth to our photos. That’s why direct flash is bad! If you’re hitting your subject with camera flash dead-on you’re filling in all the shadows hence flattening your image, eliminating depth. But on the flip side no camera has the dynamic range of the human eye, meaning the camera sensor or film won’t be able to capture the super bright highlights or deep dark shadows at the same time.

This is where flash becomes handy, it narrows the gap between these extremes. But as explained above we don’t want to loose all detail with direct flash so instead we bounce it. By turning your flash head away from the subject you can reflect the light off a wall, mirror, door or even someone’s bald-head. Here are a few examples.

Direct Flash

Available Light (no flash) I like this one the best actually *LOL*

Bounce Flash (off a left wall) you'll notice how the shadows are slightly filled-in