i don’t know how to address what’s on my mind without sounding like a bit of an ass, and maybe that’s because it comes from the part of me that is a bit of an ass. but here it is. just because you’ve seen a lot of people doing something a certain way, and just because those people might be professionals and experts, it doesn’t mean that their method is the best one available—it doesn’t mean they know why they’re doing what they’re doing. here is an example.
on sunday night i was at a fashion show and rock concert and i brought my camera because my wife was walking in the runway portion and we both thought it would be great to get some snaps of the concert since the band playing is pretty famous in bangladesh so it would be a good show to add to my portfolio. not only that it was a good reason to flex my low-light photography skills.
while i was there, i saw two other photographers who out on the floor taking pictures and both were using the same method, snapping pictures of anyone and everyone in the crowd with their flash modules turned up toward the ceiling. i’m sure they were getting a little bit of extra light using this method, but the thing is, it was probably crappy light quality and their photos most definitely suffered. the reason is that generally the only reason to turn a flash upward is for bounce flash—the light from the flash unit spreads out and hits the ceiling before bouncing back down at the subject even more diffused and generating a decently soft light pattern. it in that room, on that night, the ceilings were 30 feet above us, so the bounce flash technique was definitely not the right answer.
to be honest, this isn’t the first time i’ve seen a photographer doing something like this. it’s actually pretty common to see people who get too rutted in to their usual techniques and not thinking twice about the theory that is driving their actions. or that there might be a better way to get even more solid results. because the truth is, while the photos they were taking that night were high resolution than anything that anyone would’ve been able to take on their phone, considering that most people would be uploading them and sharing them via social media, that advantage would be lost to compression. and given that speedlight flash units provide about the same light quality as a phone flash, these guys were running around with thousands of dollars of camera gear doing what could essentially be accomplished with a smartphone and a good $50 l.e.d. light.
i talked to one of the photographers that night and he seemed really surprised that i wasn’t using flash at all. i asked him why i should be, since the stage lights provided a much more pleasing light quality. he seemed to think about what i said for a moment before going right back to doing what he’d been doing.
meanwhile, i got some really unique crowd shots including a few silhouettes and some solid photos of the band.
i’m not trying to talk shit, or put other professionals down to make myself feel better. but i am trying to say that if we want to survive as creative professionals, we need to be creative. to not fall into the trap of doing what’s been done because we crave legitimacy and will take it however we can get it. we’ve got to think about why we’re doing what we’re doing and not just follow the norms blindly like lemmings.