Paige Hassen: JRN

Compelling extreme bounce flash photograph:

For this assignment, I really wanted to experiment with the angles of the flash and the amount of power of the flash would look best. I chose this apartment because, like we did at Moore Hall for practice, all the walls are white or bright colored. I figured this could be an interesting learning experiment with all white walls that are not scattered very far apart.

For the shot above, I chose to point the flash towards the wall to my side and behind me, since there was not much room to move with this shot. I wanted to angle the flash almost completely to the side in order to maximize the contrast and shadow on my subject’s face. I experimented with this, trying to point the flash at the ceiling and walls to the right of myself, but found that bouncing the flash off the wall closest to the subject and having the flash perpendicular to the subject’s face was best for creating that contrast I wanted.

I believe that the picture above is an extreme bounce flash shot, because of the power of the flash and the high amount of contrasting shadows on the face. You can also see the flash on the subject’s face, but I made sure to ask whether she could see the flash or not and she could not. I think that resulted from being a little too close to the wall, so it was a good learning point.

Compelling normal bounce flash photograph:

The photo above is one of my favorite shots that I took throughout the assignment. Although it may seem basic or boring, the subject and I were sitting in this same place for a while until I got this shot. It was the first set-up I did with Jodi, so this is where I was really going back and forth and figuring out the best aperture, ISO, shutter speed, angles for flash, how much to fill the shots, and more.

For this shot, I also did the flash facing straight to my left and back a little, so that I could get that maximum shadow effect. There were absolutely no lights on in this apartment, as I shut them off to experiment with the assignment, so I like how the shadows and contrasts turned out without any light except for the flash.

I believe this is a compelling extreme bounce flash photograph because the shadows are extreme, and the flash is more direct off the wall. The light also compliments the subject with how the contrast is showing and the angle at which the flash arranged the shadows.

Compelling normal bounce flash photograph:

For the picture above, with the subject on the stairs, I bounced the flash off of the wall behind me, and turned the Godox with less of an angle, so that the flash would come back a little more direct onto the subject’s face.

I experimented with this shot a lot to try and make the background lighter with changing the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, but ultimately, I believe the shot above turned out best with the effect of soft lighting.

I really liked how the bounce flash pictures turned out when around or on the stairs, but since this assignment post wanted completely different shots, I didn’t include those in here, since there were similar in background.

Compelling extreme bounce flash photograph:

For this outside picture of the subject above, I wanted to do something similar to what we did in class last Wednesday, bouncing the flash off of the side of a building. Luckily, this apartment’s siding is a light cream/white color, so I figured I would give it a try.

I liked how this picture turned out, showing more harsh shadows than soft, which is why I think this is an extreme bounce flash shot. It could be a normal bounce flash shot, but I missed the first week of class when we discussed this assignment due to being out sick, so I am unsure exactly.

Something I may do a little different with shots like this in the future would be seeing what I can do with the background. Since it was night and dark outside, there was not much else I could do with places to angle the flash, but I think I could experiment with the camera to see what I could do with the background and how that would affect the subject. I still think this picture turned out well, but I would like to angle the flash a little differently next time.

After this entire assignment, I know I still need to do a lot more experimenting with bounce flash and messing with the aperture, ISO, shutter speed of the camera, as well as the flash itself. I enjoyed the assignment, as I have not used bounce flash before and really enjoyed learning how to use it, but this assignment did help me become more excited for the rest of this class and learning additional techniques to improve my skills.

There were quite a few things I did wrong along the way, as in not adjusting the correct ISO, aperture, shutter speed, etc. with the flash, but I believe that throughout every shot in each set-up, there was something I learned that furthered my prior knowledge. What I’m excited for is seeing that improvement continue throughout this class.