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Learning to light with flashes can be liberating or it can be a straightjacket. It can open up countless new doors — or it can restrict you to a small, equipment-based bag of tricks. The key is to not let your new lighting skills displace your other approaches. And even more important, to learn to let your vision cross-pollinate between seeing great ambient and creating great light from scratch. Case in point is this shoot with actress Margo Seibert, for which I packed all of my strobes but only brought out a single LP180 — and then only after our ambient had deserted us. Today we'll be tweaking the sun until it's gone. And only then swapping to flash. Read more » show less

When it comes down to it, there aren't a ton of things that can go wrong with a speedlight. And if your flash appears to be in working order (i.e., charges, zooms, etc.) but won't fire, it is probably a bad or broken tube. While you are probably looking at a three-digit repair bill from your OEM manufacturer, you can also DIY the repair for next to nothing. Read more » show less

Editor's Note: Contributor Sara Lando continues her three-part series chronicling her 10-day stint as an assistant/mole with Gregory Heisler in Dubai. This is part two. Part one is here. By Sara Lando -- "Lighting is a lot like cooking. You have a gazillion different instruments and what you use will depend on what you want to eat. Also, you don't learn how to cook by eating at restaurants. You have to cook." When Heisler was talking about this during his lecture, I thought it was cool and made sense. But it was probably only when we stepped into Cavalli Club that I got to realize how much "having to cook" was going to be put into test. He was entering the club for the first time himself: for a series of reasons, we weren't able to scout the location beforehand and he only got a glimpse of the place from some cellphone footage. When we stepped into the club, the first word that came through my mind isn't one I'd feel comfortable reporting. The place was pitch black. Read more » show less

Growth as a photographer is, for me, long periods of muddy struggle punctuated by moments of clarity. Sometimes the moments break new ground. But other times the moments solidify things you already knew —but didn't know know. Photographer Kai-Huei Yau's shot of a high school football lineman is a great example of the latter. Read more » show less

That's pretty much what I had to tell my wife, the first time she saw this baby in my basement. And yeah, I do know what it looks like. Doesn't help that it has the words "Wizard Stick" printed on the other side of it, either. But actually, this thing is a hand-held, AA-powered fog machine. Yeah it is… Read more » show less

Let's say for a moment that you found yourself embedded as an assistant with arguably the world's best living photographic portraitist. And let's also say that, beyond your primary duties as an assistant your secondary goal was to be observant as possible and report back on what you learned. That's exactly what happened to Italian photographer (and occasional Strobist contributor) Sara Lando, who as you can see above was not at all excited about her assignment at Gulf Photo Plus earlier this year. She looks almost bored, dontcha think? This post marks the first of a three-part series on what she learned from her experience. Today, the intangibles: the stuff you'd never consider because you are too busy worrying about a gridded beauty dish or something… Read more » show less

We give a lot of attention to light mods around here: big ones, little ones, hard ones, soft ones, umbrellas, soft boxes, grids and the like. But sometimes the best light mod is no light mod at all — especially indoors, with neutral walls. In that environment, often the smart choice is just to stick your bare speedlights on stands and go. Read more » show less

Upon reading the post earlier this week asking for a male-male hot-shoe-to-mini coiled sync cord, reader Shirley Lu, of Guangzhou, China noted in the comments: If this cable is 10 meters, maybe it will have a delay on signal transfer. And other point is the cost of a 10-meter cable is much higher than a set wireless triggers. Great question (er, comment), Shirley. I am so glad you posted it. And especially so, considering a quick look at your screen name shows you work at Pixel Enterprises, a Chinese lighting gear manufacturer. (Welcome!) My answers are below. Read more » show less

The good news: I just landed what will almost certainly turn out to be the coolest gig of my career. It's a dream project, and I could not be happier nor more excited about it. The bad news: It will be very time-intensive, so it will have an impact on my life going forward. Which my upcoming seminars in London and Baltimore/Washington are probably gonna be my last. If not ever, then certainly for a long time. So let's sweeten the pot a little bit for the last go-round... Read more » show less

We spend a lot of time on f/stops, shutter speeds, lighting ratios and the like around here. But none of these things — none — matters when compared against another variable: What can you actually accomplish with your photography? Long-time readers will be familiar with Florida-based nature photographer John Moran from previous article on Strobist. Always an advocate of nature, he has been one of natural Florida's most eloquent voices for conservation. Now he's taking that fight to the next level, aiming his cannons —and his Canons — at one critical target: saving Florida's natural springs. What a person with a camera, a few lights and a vision (and help from his friends) can accomplish, below. Read more » show less

Today, burn Magazine published a wide-ranging interview I did with Magnum (and NatGeo) photographer David Alan Harvey. David has long been one of my photographic idols/compass points. We met in person for the first time in San Miguel D'Allende, Mexico in 2010 and became fast friends. He is my sounding board for anything photo-journalistic or documentary in nature. And I am always happy to discuss the web and vertical ecosystems with him, usually at about 2:00am, and over drinks. This interview is essentially one of those free-form discussions, transcribed and uncut. It took place on the back stoop of a hotel in Dubai earlier this year. You can read it here. And if you have any interest at all in documentary photojournalism and on the off-chance have not yet discovered burn, OMG are you in for a treat. Dave's compass point is absolutely pure, which is why that web magazine has quickly become the place to go to learn about documentary photography and documentary photographers. Enjoy. -30- show less

"What should I wear?" asked Funlayo Alabi when we were touching base the day before I was to photograph her for the Howard County EDA. "A white shirt if you have one," I said, wanting to distill the photo and feature her skin given she that she runs a boutique beauty products company. Twenty years ago I might have said, "anything but white." But the more you work with lighting, the easier it is for you to control not only the contrast range but also the specific tone of a person's skin. Even darker skin against a white shirt. Read more » show less

See this little bag? It's about six inches across, yet it contains a ~17", collapsible ring flash adapter. Curious? I was too. So I ordered one and had it shipped over from Poland. Full test drive, inside. Read more » show less

By the time you read this I'll be on vacation with the family. We're taking a road trip north into New England and Canada, where none of us have ever been before. (The above is in Maine, on the way to Prospect Harbor on Saturday night.) That doesn't mean Strobist is closed. In fact today we're announcing a completely updated Lighting 101, among other things… Read more » show less

Okay, so we're back shooting at the MCE after our scout a couple of days ago. The weather is hot, so I am glad I choose speedlights. Much less to lug. Leading off is entrepreneur Biplab Pal, of Zreyas Technology, whose company facilitates product development and manufacturing for other companies. Let's walk through this and the other shoots... Read more » show less

Gonna do something a little different today. If at all possible, before a job I try to get to the location a day or two in advance and do a quick scout. This helps me to think a little in the interim and to anticipate any problems I might have during the shoot. It also helps me to decide what gear to bring — i.e., not to overpack. So let's do a quick scout together. In the next post, we'll walk through the shoot itself. Read more » show less

While visiting Disneyland Paris, long-time reader Paul Mason of Hartlepool, UK watched a Disney staff photographer work a room doing shots of kids with the characters. He noticed a remote on the photographer's camera, but saw no flashes anywhere — until they went off. Read more » show less

Big changes continue to ripple through the high-quality, 3rd-party flash industry this month. To wit: I've been testing a new $299 Phottix Mitros [Nikon] flash for several weeks now. Here's the five-word short version: "Nikon, you should be very afraid." Why? Because this solid, Manual/TTL/CLS/HSS flash delivers all of the punch and practically all of the functionality of your flagsship Nikon SB-910 for about half the price. With twice the warranty. Put differently: as soon as word gets out, the days of the high profit margin OEM speedlights are numbered. (More words, getting out, below…) Read more » show less

Reader Albert Yee asks, via Twitter: Ever shoot a group of 1,300 before? Trying to wrap my head around a possible assignment: Teachers and staff in a basketball arena. 1,300? 1,300. Hmm. Lighting 1,300 people indoors is a Herculean task, no matter how you slice it. Can you do it? Do you wanna do it? How would you charge for it? Lotsa questions. Let's jump in. Read more » show less

Tuesday was reasonably tense. I photographed a breakup, a drug intervention, a high school cafeteria fight and a few other iffy situations. All told, an enjoyable afternoon. And it will probably change the way I approach my portraiture going forward. Read more » show less

Having lit a full-sun outdoor group shot with a Fuji X100s and a couple speedlights, I had been itching to see what a couple Einstein e640 monoblocs would do. Way too much, as it turns out. The leaf shutter of the X100s and the insane t.1 times of the Einsteins are a match made in heaven. We had to dial them down quite a bit for this shot of a local food truck scooter operator... Read more » show less

The $199 LumoPro LP180 quad-sync, all-manual speedlight has arrived. I have been shooting with a couple pre-production units for several months now, so have had ample time to formulate some thoughts. Short version: The LP180 is rock-solid, with a near-perfect feature set for lighting photographers. It's the first flash that I actually prefer over a Nikon SB-800. Long version: below. Read more » show less

You can easily kill an afternoon scanning the excellent work that readers upload to the site's Flickr group. Every now and then one will really stop you in your tracks, as did photographer Sergey Zaytsev's homage to Georgia's Queen Tamar, seen above. Very cool that it was done with more creativity than dollars (or lari, I should say?) and with a strong historical inspiration, to boot. Would it surprise you to find this was done with a Nikon D300s and a few bare Cactus KF36 Vivitar 285 knockoffs? 'Cause that's what he used. Read more » show less