Hi everyone!.

I wanna achieve a homemade frontal flash look in a session that i'm planning for next week, and would like to know if anyone have some advice regarding the do and don'ts of this style of sessions.

I've some questions regarding the flash power/exposure balance on camera,  or the use of a softbox for the flash, etc.

I will have the place available for onlye an hour for the shoot, so the experimentation gonna be fairly limited

The kind of look I was thinking about, would be something like this:

stick to the lowest iso, stop your lens down enough to kill ambient light, set the shutter to your camera's sync speed and  adjust the flash to get a properly exposed subject.

put the flash on the camera and dont modify it?

Use a flash from the front

Your probably looking for bare flash or a modifier without the diffusion panel in. Same rule of exposure applies with exception that you could over-expose a bit to effect the skin.

Or take the simple route and get a ringflash. similar effect.

First shot is on camera flash with the flash just you the right of the lens.
Shadows cast by the model are larger to her right.

Second shot is flash just onto of the lens.

Hair texture is clogged up so it's a bare flash face with no diffusion and no optics (no leko lenses)

Use high enough flash sync speed to overpower daylight enough to get deep shadows. !.5 to 3 stops over daylight.

How harsh do you want the light and how harsh do you want the shadows ? If you want harsh light and shadow with sharp edges then use a flash at camera or close to the camera position. Maybe a small bounce card. If you want softer light and softer edges to the shadow then use a soft box. If you don't want shadows then you'll need to pull the subject away from the background so the shadow falls outside of the image.

Brackets can be such a pain, but I've finally found one that I like: http://www.custombrackets.com/products/ … f-pro.html


The "Terry"  lighting looks best when the subject is close to or against the background. Otherwise you have a lot of falloff and it doesn't look right.


As Fred pointed out, the flash is to the right in the first shot. It's probably in the hotshoe. That works especially well for this shot since the background on the right is further away than on the left. Had the camera been flipped the other way, the hotspot on the left would be even brighter and the background on the right would be darker.


The further away you are, the more even the light will be between the subject and the background. The exposure will be more consistent as well.


I know some people who shoot every image horizontally and then crop vertically in post so that the flash is always centered when not using a bracket.

Also consider hand holding the flash which solves the bracket issue, and also allows you to vary the height.

Thanks for all the replies (Including the "put the flash on front" lol).

I never used any kind of artificial lighting in my pictures before, and with the limited time for this shoot it would be impossible to get smth workable. Your advice will help a lot .

You can take it one step further, without using a ring flash...


6 slaves around your lens barrel.
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