072: Flash Masters – How To Get Started With Off Camera Flash & Why You Should Be Working With It!
August 30, 2022
” Go out and just practise with a flash.”
NEIL & HELEN – FLASH MASTERS
Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Neil & Helen of Flash Masters!
Check out some of the biggest points from Neil & Helen’s interview below:
Why is off camera flash such a great skill to have?
Neil Redfern:
I think personally, there’s two big reasons why off camera flash is such a useful tool to have what your sleeve, as it were. The first one, is that it can help you to change a scene from something that looked quite average and dare I say boring to the human eye, to something completely different and something that your bride and groom just can’t comprehend. And all you really need for that is bright light sources. So it could be a light, it could be seating lights, it could be something on the wall. Anything that is just quite bright and you could have a room that is chaotic, there’re chairs out, there’re bins, there’s people stood around, but that changes when you use off camera flash, you can direct expose that scene. So that’s one, you can make an average scene look really, really spectacular.
And that’s a great, great thing. And the other thing as well, I think is that, as you mentioned before, Sally, we are based in the UK and we don’t know what weather we’re going to get. And sometimes we could have a wedding in June and our bride and groom are so excited because they’re hoping their vision for the day is beautiful light and they’re going to be outside and it’s all going to be amazing. And it’s not. It’s, as you will know very well, it’s gray, it’s overcast, it’s a bit cloudy, it’s raining. And it can change what their perception of the photographs is going to be. But once you’ve got off camera flash, you can still create these really incredible images with the tools that you have in your bag. So it sort of makes you bulletproof against bad conditions as well. So I think it’s those two things, it’s being able to transform a very boring scene into something that looks really amazing. And it gives you the confidence that wherever we come across weather wise on a wedding day, we can still create really stunning images.
How does Flash Masters, in terms of the award side of things, differ to what’s already out there?
Helen:
Well we felt, like I said, looking at the other amazing award sort of sites and there are some, and we’re good friends with people who do run award sites. But we do feel like that they’re very documentary led. That quite often, they really appreciate sort of the black and white, sort of very moment driven moment led images, which we are able to do using flash as well. However, we really wanted to really celebrate, because when we are using off camera flash, we often have to edit. We need to chrome up light stands or there’re certain things that are part of the process often when using off camera flash, which when you’re entering certain awards, you are not able to do. So lots of them don’t allow composites or they don’t really appreciate sort of using Photoshop to remove elements and there’re things that naturally we need to do as well.
So I know as we are setting this up or even writing the rules for Flash Masters, it was like, take away all the preconceived ideas you have with photography awards and just throw them to the side. Because it is a different type of photography and we really wanted to be able to address that. And I said, give that space for people to celebrate what they’re achieving because there’s so many others where you wouldn’t be allowed to remove light stands or distracting elements. And quite often when we are using off camera flash, it’s things that just can’t be avoided.
Neil Redfern:
I think as well, basically when it comes to off camera flash, you can use it at any point during the day. And we do, during the speeches, during bridal prep sometimes, dancing. But commonly, people think of off camera flash being in relation to portraits. And most of the contests that are out there, don’t really sort of celebrate those off camera flash portraits as much. Most contests… and there’s nothing wrong with this, Helen and I both shoot a wedding day, primarily documentary. 9% of what we take is documentary. So we’re not doing anything drastically different to what a lot of photographers are doing out there. However, what we choose to show, is usually portraits taken with off camera flash. And it’s those images that are almost like discriminated against when it comes to awards. There are awards out there which do sort of celebrate those images.
However, those awards without naming names, don’t tend to have any transparency at all. And we wanted to create an award site that did both. That would celebrate those off camera flash portraits, as well as every other type of off camera flash image. But not discriminate against portraits, but also be extremely transparent and extremely open. So it fills in a void that at the moment is just there, left unfilled. So we will be announcing who the judges are. People will know exactly how these images are judged, they’ll know which images got close, but didn’t quite win. And it will be extremely transparent. And people will know everything behind the scenes as well, because as I say, the awards contests that are out there that do sort of allow them, have no transparency. So we’re trying to sort of do the best of both worlds, have it a very honest, transparent award system, which also celebrates off camera flash.
Is there anything you would change if you could have your time again?
Helen:
Oh, I think I would’ve booked on a flash course earlier, rather than having two years of just going “I don’t know what I’m doing!”
Just learn it, you won’t regret it. It’s always those skills that you have, whether you choose to use them very often or not, depending on your style of photography, to know how to use them is invaluable. And like, as Neil said, it makes you bulletproof, it makes you confident. And also it helps you run your business year round. Because I do know some natural light photographers, who from November to April will just be like, “I’m not working.” That’s too stressful. So it sort of allows you that ability to work year round as well.
Neil Redfern:
My answer, I just think that, I mean, there was loads of things that I would’ve done differently, especially those first few years, because everything I did was wrong, so I could’ve picked a hundred answers. But I would say for me it would’ve been to start doing style shoots earlier because that’s when I feel as though my work started to improve. And I only probably started doing them 2015 ish, something like that. But I’d been using off camera flash for five years at that point. So I think as soon as I started using off camera flash, it would’ve been cool to think, “Right. Let’s go out and let’s just start practicing.” And I think I would’ve probably saved myself quite a lot, three, four years at least, of learning on the job.
So yeah, that would be my advice, all the times people, to get out there with your camera on a day that is not a wedding day and just shoot for fun. Because one of the only slight issues with weddings when you get very busy is that it can become a bit of a Busman’s holiday and you end up just only getting your big camera out when it comes to actually working on a wedding day and you can lose a little bit of the joy pf shooting for yourself. So that’s what I’d always say, get out there with your camera and just enjoy yourself, which I should have done before I did, because that’s when I really started seeing improvements in my work.
Thank you!
Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Neil & Helen for joining us on the show!
If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!
That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.
See you soon,
Sally
About Flash Masters
