Experiment with Your Flash

Avard Woolaver, flash, snow,
© Avard Woolaver

Experiment with Your Flash (Day 26 of 31)

My experience has been that it’s useful to play around with the flash in all sorts of different circumstances; experimenting with it can lead to surprising outcomes. The past few winters I’ve used it a lot to capture snowfall, and I’ve been really pleased with how some of these photos have turned out.

I’ve gotten good results at twilight, when the sky is sort of an indigo blue. The flash stops the snowflakes and makes them show up really clearly, and the air itself is revealed to be three-dimensional. It can be a beautiful effect. It’s so rare that we can see air as something that takes up actual space; with some of the snowflake shots, empty air is given a foreground, middle ground, and background.

Some of the snow-with-flash photos I like best are taken in my yard, and others are in a little patch of woods on a hill at the top of my yard. Snowflakes among the trees at twilight are a very peaceful sight.

Experimenting with your flash is a great way to play around with your camera. You can see what happens when you’re shooting up close, or focusing on a distant object; in all kinds of different lighting conditions. At least a few will end up being pleasant surprises that teach you something unexpected.

(For the month of October 2017, I’m participating in the 31 Days bloggers’ challenge. You can find out about it here, and check out the interesting work other bloggers are posting.)