Light comes in many different forms and since it is the essence of photography, it's our job to know how to use it and how to blend different types of light.
Natural or ambient light seems to be a very popular choice these days and that probably has to do with the impressive ISO capabilities of today's cameras. Using natural light can give you amazing results indeed, but it can often produce flat and uninteresting images.
Yet many beginners settle for these flat images because they fear using flash. Somewhere along the way, an idea was put into their heads that flash is bad and it makes people look bad. Well, that's true if you don't know how to use it.
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Balancing ambient light with flash can give your shots power and drama. It makes them look interesting and it allows you to be free from any restrictions imposed by weather and lighting conditions. This is a technique can be applied in portrait, fashion, glamour and wedding photography with great results.
All you need is a simple external flash. You don't even need a modifier like a softbox or an umbrella. The first results you will get my not be everything you'd expected, but after you learn to master the relationship between aperture, flash and shutter speed, you'll be on your way to creating the dramatic shots you're after.
Photographer Gavin Hoey explains how you can overcome natural light using a single flash in a video from AdoramaTV. He then takes you through the retouching process in Photoshop and finally arrives at the final result.