What I love about creative lighting is that it gives you the possibility of making the same subject look totally different. No matter if it's a portrait or a picture of an object, you can play with light and achieve different looks. Natural light will wrap in a specific way around someone's face, while using several strobes to create a Dave Hill-like look will produce totally different results. I'm a fan of creative lighting in general and I use all kinds of setups and modifiers. Sometimes it's best to just use a reflector, other times you won't get away without using at least two flashes.
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But my favorite part about creative lighting is balancing natural light with flash, or better said, using flash to fill shadows. Once you learn how to do it correctly, you'll start creating dramatic results in no time. The key to balancing flash with ambient light is to match the exposure settings. Let's say you want to shoot a portrait of someone indoors, but you want them to have a window with a view behind. If you resort only to natural light, you'll end up with a well exposed model and a totally blown background. If you expose for the background, you'll get that right but your model will be covered in darkness. This is actually the starting point for setting up your flash. One of the most important things to remember in any situation where you have to combine flash with natural light is that one has to resemble the other. In other words, if the ambient light is soft, the light coming from your flash will have to be modified to look the same. If you're shooting in harsh sunlight, the best approach is to use smaller modifiers or even bare flash. The distance from flash to model is also very important, but you'll have to figure that out on location, and that goes the same for the exposure settings.
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Here's a great video tutorial on how to balance natural light with flash from Adorama TV.
Learn more about using flash from these recommended books:
- Photography Lighting: Easy Lighting Techniques You Can Try at Your Home
- How to Set Up Photography Lighting for a Home Studio
- Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It: Learn Step by Step How to Go from Empty Studio to Finished Image