Flash is not always your friend - Raleigh,NC Infant photography

As part of our recent photo question contest Jen H submitted this excellent question with attached photo.


How do you keep from getting "Shadow Head and Body" in photos. See the attached baptism photo for an example. All of our photos had this shadow which I assume is from the flash on the wall. But if lighting is not good enough, and we are indoors, what are the options to avoid this? Someone suggested holding a notecard above the flash to angle the light down.



Yes Jen the shadows are a result of the flash directed straight on at your family. There are a few different things you can do to try to get around these shadows.

1st - see if you can get away with shooting without a flash. Disable your flash and up your ISO setting on your camera. Your ISO setting is probably currently set between 100-400. See how high your camera allows you to up it. With my DSLR I can up the ISO as high as 6400. See if your camera can be set to 1600. Usually at this setting you can shoot in low light with minimal noise.
Noise or grain gives your photos that look somewhat similar to the "snowy" appearance of a bad TV signal. Digital images shot in low light or with a high ISO setting often exhibit this undesirable noise. Much of today's photo editing software offers tools for reducing noise in digital photos so many photographers choose to shoot at high ISOs in lowlight and then run noiseware to filter out the noise.

2nd - when an in-camera flash is necessary, make sure to position your subjects away from walls,fences,etc. For instance instead of shooting this shot against the wall you can have positioned yourselves in the aisle so that the flash won't have anything to bounce off of. This will eliminate the shadows behind you and really improve your photo.

3rd- you could tape a piece of parchment paper over the flash to diffuse the flash power or as suggested find a way to bounce the flash up towards the ceiling, preferably if the ceiling is white. however if you are fumbling around trying to hold note cards etc, it may be hard to capture the shot with a steady hand.

Hope these tips help! And remember if you have a photography related question of any sort email it to me at christa@mycreativeclicks.com and be eligible to win a one on one photography lesson with me.