This one is short and sweet because I'm headed on vacation and I don't have too much time here so I just figured I'd get to the point.. Happy Accidents, thats all... Yep, they happen to everybody just about every day. Sometimes you don't even realize they are happy until AFTER the wedding... At that point, you can put them into your reserves and turn a happy accident into a sweet moment! In this photo example, Sol was shooting a portrait moment with her bride who was patiently waiting for her call to walk down the isle... Taking advantage of this time and the beautiful contrast of colors, Sol quickly placed her associate over left shoulder with a speedlight on a stick (monopod) extended so that she could position the light coming across the wall at a 45 degree angle, spilling down more naturally. A snoot helped focus the light into this more controlled spread of light. Its pretty tough to reach out with a 5 foot extended monopod with a snooted speedlight attached...even tougher to HIT YOUR TARGET.... DOH... In this case, I kinda like the moment where it appears a sunbeam is coming across the wall...adds a layer of texture. Who would of thunk it? Put your light on the something other than your subject? Sounds easy enough...but how many times can you remember doing that? I know I'm going to try it more often! Nice shot Sol! love me some happy accidents! Cheers! matt

 

WHEW...Sol & I are officially going to go on vacation tomorrow. Flight leaves at 7am, will be out of the house at 5. No, I haven't packed anything yet... I'm going to try to enjoy the Black Hills of South Dakota, Jackson Hole WY, Grand Tetons & Yellowstone. We are there for 2 weeks. Problem is, Sol & I are totally up to our ears in editing... We shot 4 weddings, 2 e-sessions, 1 ttd session, 1 rehearsal dinner in the last 8 days...oh, we traveled 5000+ miles to do it. Virgin Islands, Captiva Island FL, Riviera Maya Mexico....whew...We just landed yesterday in the Atl Studio from that adventure... SO, needless to say, i've got some work ahead of me while I am on vacation. I will likely NOT be updating flashflavor...sorry, please hang out. We return on July 23. In the meantime, i'd like to get a little feedback about flashflavor!!! At this point, we have averaged a solid 500 unique visits per day, since FF's birth... thanks for hanging out! Is flashflavor working for you? Do you like the posts? Does the format work? Anything constructive would be helpful for us... Please drop a comment or send me an email. Participation is KEY info@mattadcock.com Cheers & thanks for stopping by!

 

PS: if you have an image that you would like to submit to FF, please do so. I am looking for strong PJ moments. Just remember that I may not have time to reply to every submission. Matt *****UPDATE***** HOLY MOLY, i'm addicted! to the internet... Yes, we traveled thousands of miles to visit the beautiful black hills and they have internet in this state park where we are staying... I am going to be in trouble if Sol catches me out here again chatting away.... :) As I sit here watching Bison and deer crossing the road in the distance, i'm motivated to reply to some of your feedback: Thanks SO much for offering feedback, and i'm humbled by the nice words... seriously, thanks for taking the time to visit! I've had tons of emails coming in with helpful comments and ideas. I need this stuff! In the day of web 2.0, its crucial to understand what your audience is thinking and feeling... Its almost as if this site is a living and breathing creature... I feed it and it talks back... I really appreciate the participation, very much. I am glad this site is working for everybody... I would like to thank David Hobby, at www.strobist.com for motivating me to get FF started. Lots of you have commented that you were directed to FF via his awesome site. I think we all owe him a big THANK YOU for what he does! With wedding photography today, I've felt the need to be a motivator and share my ideas and thoughts...FF has been a great outlet to do so! With the amount of weddings we are shooting these days, we will hopefully have enough material to keep this baby going. One day, we will be offering a workshop and hopefully there, I will be able to discuss some of our techniques on a person to person level! Cheers! matt

going to make this short...still on vacation :) I have been thinking about this shot as I was browsing the digital wedding forum the other day, looking at some images from many awesome photographers posting images with strobes behind their subjects or coming in from an angle, adding a halo of light to the frame... I believe this technique is one you can put in your bag of tricks to carry around with you...its one that allows you many many very different possibilities. Include the flash in the frame, just out of the frame...shoot wide, shoot tight.... 1 million more possibilities here.. In this case, I was shooting a first dance... I decided to layer my composition by placing the couple between the shoulders of two of the members of the bridal party... this technique pretty much works all the time...So now that the framing of the image is out of the way, its time to decide where to place the light... I was trying to contrast a soft elegant moment with some harsh strong powerful light and came up with the following photo example...Ethereal almost.. This photo would have failed had the best man's head not been placed in front of the flash...IMHO. I honestly have NO IDEA what my remote speedlight settings were in this frame...I was mixing it up by shooting available, then switching to on camera bounce, and mixing up just about every possibility I had and then decided to switch on the Pocket Wizard and fired away... my assistant was on the other side of the dance floor. OH, My on camera bounce added the exposure on their faces! yep, it is possible to add some on camera flavor ttl style :) Thoughts? Cheers! matt

Ok... still on vacation :) last day. I am in the hotel getting ready for 6 hrs of flying today and 3 or so hours of airport layover. I was inspired by the last post "rim light" and decided to discuss the technique of including the flash burst INSIDE the frame. I have used this compositional technique "what feels like a million times" and each time I do it, I am trying to use the burst to strengthen the moment... I challenge you to ask yourself, literally as you are shooting... "why you are making the compositional choice to include the light in the frame". This technique is one that I am seeing more and more these days, especially on wedding forums that I belong to. If you can come up with a reason that makes the image you are about to capture stronger by including the light in the frame, then go ahead and nail it. If it is a frame that is just ok or so so... then you may want to challenge yourself to compose a bit stronger or wait for a stronger moment. In this photo example, Sol Tamargo included the "light in the frame" technique to emphasize one seriously amazing photojournalism moment, IMHO. A simple choice to wait for the singer to belt out these notes sealed the deal on superb moment vs an ok moment... highlighted by a strobe burst in the frame... I'd like to see some more challenging use of this flash burst... Put side by side with an amazing PJ moment, I am sure that your photo will be stronger. Please share your moments... Better yet, feel free to join my new Flash Flavor Flickr group and drop us a few photos there to look at... Please provide a comment if you feel inspired. If you have similar photos to share, post them there... The key is participation so that we can all LEARN and grow with our shooting experiences. Cheerios, Matt