What You Saw, What I Saw

View the original here.

I was checking sculptor Sandra Shaw's website when I discovered this photograph. Ms. Shaw is the sculpture who created the bronze statue to honor the Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II. I knew that there were photographers standing on the raised partition behind me. One of them captured this image.

On closer inspection, I noticed a familiar camera with a familiar flash, held aloft by a photographer. By golly, that's me, using the "Hail Mary" technique to get a better angle on the scene. If you at the image at the right, you can see my trusty Fuji T-2, and a Flashpoint Zoom LI-on X flash with its head angled upwards.

Ethics: When submitting a photograph as "news", there is an ethical standard that photographers must meet. "Photos Do Not Lie" is central to the viewer's trust in our images. and we must follow a standard of "Photographers Must Not Lie" when submitting our images as true representations of what we saw.

It is apparent that my photo was taken at almost the same time from almost the same position. I was closer to the edge of the crowd and slightly lower, which is why the spectators at the edge of the frame are easily recognizable. The only significant difference is the flash, which allowed me to add detail into the shadow side of the nearest spectators.

The human eye is amazing. It can effortless switch between areas of bright sunlight and darker shadow, within reason, and can extract information from either situation. Neither film nor digital sensors can do this without some help. which in my case, was the addition of the flash to the mix. By using flash, I was able to capture the mood of the crowd, and their individual expressions. This supplementary-lit photo also maintained more detail when published on newsprint. For me, it was win-win.

Ethically, some may question the addition of flash was an artificial influence on the subject. I contend the flash merely gave the viewer the ability to more closely examine the details that the first photo didn't. The "golden" tone it gave to the statue was unfortunate, but inescapable due to the flash placement so close to the lens axis. At the very least my photo provided a better sense of the audience reaction to the unveiling. There is one drawback. By optimizing the flash to ambient exposure for the foreground, the people in the distance were too dark. I think that using the flash was the only way to go.

Eugene Smith: There is a famous quote attributed to photographer W. Eugene Smith (1918- 1978). When asked about lighting technique, he said, in effect, that he only used available light, which many assumed to mean natural light. After a pause, he clarified:

"Available light is any damn light that is available!"

Gary Fong's Classic Light Sphere

 

Guapo: This photo of "Guapo*" was made on my last assignment using a Gary Fong Lightsphere. Those who have followed my blog know that I was an early adopter, and that I still recommend it as you first, and possibly your last, flash modifier. It's simple to use, reliable, and durable. Since it was an exhibition, I assumed the quarters might be cramped, so a single, on-camera flash was the best choice. 

Order yours here.

For this assignment, I brought a Godox flash with a rectangular head profile since my Light Sphere wouldn't fit on my preferred, round headed Godox V1. There is a wide variety of accessories that attach magnetically to the round head including color correction gels, snoots, grids, and diffusion domes. 

I happened to visit the Gary Fong website, and found that they have updated the Light Sphere to accommodate the Godox V1 as you can see from this photo. In this photo taken from the Gary Fong website, you see the Light Sphere without the removable cloud dome. You can see that the magnetic bezel of the V1 is clearly visible, and accessible to a filter holder. This solves my gelling problem, and moves this round-headed wonder back into my camera bag.  It turns out that with the dome removed, it can be stuffed into the compartment in my Domke F2 Camera Bag where I normally stow my X-T2, nose down, with its 16-55mm lens. It takes up no additional space, and it adds some additional padding. The dome is removed and then stowed behind one of the bag's internal dividers.

Light Sphere In Use: Normally the LS is used with the flash pointing straight up and the dome in place. To the good, it make deflects all of the light back into the LS, directing it outward at 360 degrees on the horizontal. The light is free to bounce off the walls to provide some gentle fill light. This being said, the light is basically an above axis light source placed higher above a conventional, forward facing flash. The takeaway is the Light Sphere with its Dome in place can function in rooms with high ceilings.

Alternatively, in venues with rooms having conventional ceilings, you can remove the dome and orient you flash to an optimal bounce configuration. Guapo's photo was made with the dome off in a room with a conventional eight-foot ceiling. In the sample at the top of this post, the dome was removed and the flash pointed straight up. You can see that the lighting is even from front to back bouncing down from the ceiling onto the wood panels in the background. Examination of the catchlights shows a large catchlight from the ceiling. accompanied by a smaller one  from the Light Sphere itself. You can see this in the tight crop of the eye shown here. The third, small catchlight is probably from the varnished wooden bench my subject was sitting on. The latter two catchlights can be removed in post, if they bother you.

Alternate Techniques: As I mentioned, there are alternative bounce techniques when the dome is removed. For this shot I pointed the flash towards the wall so the light would land evenly on the wall. In this case, it worked fairly well, and the image, if submitted for publication, would require minimal exposure correction. The LS itself provided the light the illuminates the viewer at the left. As you can see by the shadow on my subject's jawline, there is sufficient modeling on her face in spite of the fact this is on-camera flash, but a little higher than normal.

The Light Sphere has been copied overseas, and while the original costs a little more, it's worth it. I've been using them for about fifteen years now (I consider myself a relatively early adopter) and is still the flash modifier I recommend if one is just starting out. And the product keeps improving, so I'm glad to add this newest iteration, the Gen 5, to my camera bag.

Update - March 19: As of today, I have not yet received my Light Sphere Generation 5. I ordered it a week ago, and received the Dome, but not the LSG5 itself. All attempts to contact the company have been bounced back. I can understand some production and delivery problems, but as of now, nothing but crickets. Will update this post when the LSG5 finally arrives. I have faith.

*Spanish for "handsome".