We all have run into the situation where we have an awful area to shoot.

When I was a novice photographer, I would really freak out in a non-studio setting. Then I’d start moving furniture around to try to find a clean background that looked decent. And the lighting in the room would be typically be awful. Using flash made it worse. What I didn’t know then was that I could eliminate the surrounding room entirely, by simply using directed flash to eliminate the ugly room.

The easiest way to understand flash photography is to grasp the concept that with flash, there are actually two exposures going on; the first one is the “ambient” light, with a much higher speed “blitz” of flash as another simultaneous exposure. The neat thing is that you can mix the two independently so that your flash can “blend” with the ambient light, or you can make your flash relatively so powerful, that the ambient light disappears. This is especially handy when you have an ugly background!

In the example above, the first photo on the left shows where my model was. left, She is sitting at the bottom of a stairwell in a utility building. From that very spot, using only two speedlights and my Snoot and Lightsphere with color tabs, I was able to instantly create the dramatic images you see above.

I have been very very busy making instructional YouTube videos – right now I have over 9,000 subscribers and over 2.7 million page views. I’m all about making instructional videos because I so often see photographers who don’t understand flash, and therefore have use whatever light is available. With just a few pieces of inexpensive equipment, they could quickly create awesome results. I can make blue skies on cloudy days, and I can make a swimming pool look like a fiery red cauldron. In seconds!

Thanks for reading this far into my email – it shows you’re interested in this topic. So, as a thanks for your interest and support, please feel free to take 20% off of any purchase on my e-store at garyfonginc.com, just use coupon code YOUTUBE20 when checking out. And watch this video below. If you are open to changing your photography dramatically, I am pretty confident you’ll leap with excitement at what you can do!