The Beginner Photography Podcast

How Umbrellas Can Transform Your Images with Cris Duncan

• Raymond Hatfield

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#466 In today's episode of the podcast, I chat with portrait photographer Cris Duncan about mastering light with an umbrella for your flash and creating dimension in your photographs to transform your photographic techniques and storytelling.

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Embrace Manual Mode with Flash: Unlock the true potential of your creativity by understanding how aperture and shutter speed interact with flash, enhancing your artistic expression.
  • Practice Leads to Instinct: With regular implementation, you'll develop an instinctual grasp of lighting, leading to faster setups and more confident shooting.
  • Light Shapes Stories: Learn to control light to sculpt the narrative of your photos, using hierarchy and contrast to direct the viewer's attention where you want it most.
  • Modifiers are Game-changers: Discover affordable tools like umbrellas that soften light, adding depth and nuance to your portraits, and elevate the professional quality of your work.

PHOTOGRAPHY ACTION PLAN

  • Practice Shutter Speed Variations with Flash: Take your camera and flash unit, set the camera to manual mode, and experiment with various shutter speeds. Observe how changing the shutter speed affects the areas of your photo not illuminated by the flash. Aim to shoot in both bright and dimly lit conditions to see how ambient light interacts with the flash at different shutter speeds, remembering that flash exposure remains constant.
  • Master Lighting Placement: Position your light source at a 45-degree angle from your subject to create appealing shadow and depth, enhancing the three-dimensionality of your portraits. Use a reflector to bounce light onto the shadow side of the subject, experimenting with reflector distance and angle to manipulate shadow density and contrast.
  • Utilize Umbrellas for Soft Lighting: Incorporate a bounce or translucent umbrella into your setup to diffuse and soften the light. Begin by pointing a bounce umbrella towards your subject and adjusting the spread of light accordingly. For larger groups, opt for a bigger umbrella to ensure even light distribution across all individuals, and try using translucent umbrellas for a wider light spread when necessary.
  • Control Contrast with Off-Camera Flash: Detach your flash from the camera and place it off to the side to create more dynamic lighting with visible shadows, which contribute to the form and texture in your photos. Test shooting outdoors with off-camera flash to balance the daylight and flash exposure, giving you more control over the contrast and mood of your images.
  •  Learn and Apply Light Hierarchy: Begin by crafting a lighting plan that assigns priority to different elements of your scene, such as main subject illumination, background, and accent lighting, based on your creative objectives. As you arrange your setup, constantly check through your viewfinder to ensure the light is shaping your subject as intended and adjust your light sources and modifiers to match your vision for the photograph.

Resources:
Cris's lighting resource with lighting diagrams - https://learn.findyou

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Cris Duncan:

I'm looking for those three things. I want highlight, which is the brightest part of the face, the mid tone, which is the natural part of the face, and then the shadow, which is the darkest part of the face. I want all three of those on five parts of the face. That's the forehead, the nose, both cheeks, and the chin. So the shadows aren't raccoon eyes. The shadows aren't You know, half the face is in light and half the face is in shadow. I'm trying to make sure I have good light and on the forehead, the nose, both cheeks and the chin. And I call those the five planes of the face.

Raymond Hatfield:

Hey, welcome to the Beginner Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield. And today we are chatting with portrait photographer Chris Duncan about creating beautiful light with just an umbrella. But first the beginner photography podcast is brought to you by cloud spot simplify your business with studio management organized clients said professional contracts automate invoice payments and more keeping track of Everything in growing a photography business just got easier You can grab your free forever account over at deliver photos comm and only upgrade when you and your business are ready Now, Chris has been on the podcast before. the first time was like four years ago and I still get emails today from listeners who say that the way that Chris explains light, makes trying it out so much easier than they imagined. So today I promise you is going to be no different. In today's interview, Chris shares how light shapes stories. He explains how to control light to sculpt the narrative. of your photos using a hierarchy of contrast to direct the viewer's attention where you want it most. He also tells you why you should embrace manual mode with flash and that to unlock the full potential of your creativity, shooting a manual with flash will allow you to better understand how aperture and shutter speed interact with flash, allowing you to master Your light every time. And lastly, Chris talks in depth about how he used his favorite and affordable flash modifier, the umbrella to soften light, which adds depth and nuance to your portraits, and honestly elevates the professional quality of the images that you are able to create. So there's a lot in this episode, go ahead and buckle up and get ready. So with that, let's go ahead and get on into today's interview with Chris Duncan. Chris, I want to know. when did light become an important element in photography for you? You've been shooting for a long time. When did you know that light was going to be your thing?

Cris Duncan:

Man, I'm starting off deep. I'm not sure when I knew exactly light was going to be important. I had taken I knew I wanted my work to improve. I was enjoying photography. I'd kind of been dabbling in it for a while. It's something that, I've kind of wanted to do. I've enjoyed since I was a kid. I was into my married life. We had a young child and kind of wanted to make it a business. And that was around 2001? 2000? No, yeah, 2002. Sometime around then. But anyway, later on, I just knew my work. I wanted to improve it. And so I started taking some courses, and one of the first ones I went to was from Tony Corbell, who, hopefully some of your listeners know who he is. If they don't, they need to look him up. He's at the sunset years of his career now, but he was a big influence, for a lot of photographers, in my generation and the one above me, just teaching light and how it can impact a scene. And I took classes from him probably six times. Really. Wow. Yes. Just 'cause he taught so much, his wealth of knowledge was so expansive and my first time I could only grab like a 10th of it or a 5th you know, I just didn't have the capacity to get all of it. So I had to go back and revisit to get a little more and a little more and a little more. so he definitely played a big influence in lighting for me. and now we're close friends and go on vacations together and have dinners together. So that's, been really fun.

Raymond Hatfield:

How fun, how fun. I love that about photography, the ability to, create those connections. And yes, for sure. Unknowingly, in the beginning, it's, it's, Oh, interesting. This

Cris Duncan:

is such an open profession. It's such a sharing profession, and I'm sure there's some that are tight lipped and cleave everything to their vest, but man, most, the majority of people just want to see great work and great images and be inspired by it, and so they share so that can happen and spread. I

Raymond Hatfield:

totally agree. Totally agree. So, when you're taking, say that first class on lighting, right, I'm sure that you left super excited or super overwhelmed, you know, probably a little bit of both. when you got home and you took out the flash and you got to work, was it as easy as Tony had made it look, or did you fall into some, uh, trial? No, it

Cris Duncan:

wasn't even close. You know, it's like, I don't know. I don't know what sport you follow, but I, I, I really, Baseball. Okay. Well, I enjoy golf and there's probably some similarities to it. Is it you watch a pro game or a pros? Those guys get up there and like, Oh, that looks so simple, right? I can do that. and you visualize it in your head. Like, well, next time I'm at the mound or next time I'm at the bat. I know what to do. It's just a disaster. So it was kind of that same way with me. too much of my, I had so much of my mental capacity trying to think my way through the processes. I think that that bogged down the natural and instinctive ability that was probably inside me. It just hasn't blossomed yet. And so that's something now I pass on to my students is like sitting in a chair or listening to watching a YouTube video or hearing a podcast. That's great. That's a good first step, but that's not where it ends. You then have to, you have to implement it. You have to practice it because that's where it becomes manifest. You can't just watch a Dodgers game and say, okay, now I can play great baseball. You have to go and you have to, practice it. and then you have to revisit it. Just like I had to go to Tony's class again. I had forgotten some of the techniques cause I was so bogged down on maybe this one. And I had to keep refilling that, that tank and practice it, of course. So it wasn't, it didn't come easy. it probably took about a year, which may be a gulp moment for some of your listeners, to where I really felt that it became instinctive.

Raymond Hatfield:

A year before it really felt instinctive, instinctive, as far as like using it. were you using it in a, commercial setting or was this for just personal photos?

Cris Duncan:

Oh, it was all commercial. It was all for our business. And what I mean by instinctive is where you becomes almost second nature. You don't have to think about it, right? You just kind of set it up by instinct. You're like, okay, I know this is going to work. It's predictable. I've practiced it enough that this is the result I'm going to get.

Raymond Hatfield:

I see. So I know that, you've obviously come a long way because today you teach lighting, your workshops as well are helping countless other photographers. But I know that one thing that, a lot of beginners struggle with when you talk about light, their eyes kind of glaze over and they're like, what are you talking about? Like there's light everywhere. I don't, I don't understand what you mean by, phrases like see the light. Can you help us To better understand the importance of learning how to use light.

Cris Duncan:

well, you're correct. Light is everywhere. but it may not be the light that's most flattering to your subjects or the light that's in the best position to render detail and texture and depth and shape. So what I've had to do is create a hierarchy. And what I mean by hierarchy is and everyone has a different hierarchy. mine isn't the correct one. It's not necessarily the wrong one either, but it's just what I put value on. And so when I'm looking at lighting, there's kind of a list. I want to make sure it achieves and if it can achieve these three objectives, and I feel like I've worked on my job, one is I want to make sure it provides enough contrast. well, let me say it makes up for the difference to what my I can see in my camera can record because those are two different values. We've probably all seen a beautiful scene and take a picture and you're like, that looks nothing like what's in front. Yeah. so what are I can record is so much greater than what our camera can record and even what our paper can print. Which really comes down to five stops of dynamic range. So one, I want my lighting to be able to be in a workable contrast that the print looks, looks nice and acceptable. I want to make sure it has shape, depth, and form that I see three dimensional, context in the two dimensional media. And then finally, if possible, I want it to try to enhance the story that we're trying to tell. And so that's kind of my hierarchy I work through. I can achieve those. Then I've satisfied my needs and I've probably satisfied the client's needs or exceeded them. Sure. Sure.

Raymond Hatfield:

How is it that using artificial light does

Cris Duncan:

that? well on the, on the first part about making up for the difference when our eyes sees in the camera can record is what I think a lot of beginning photographers, it's a hard concept to grasp it's, it's just is, but when you do, it's really freeing is that most of us, a lot of photographers understand the exposure triangle and how it's conversely relative to each other. So if we're just in an ambient situation. And we decide to change our shutter speed, our aperture has to change the opposite direction to balance out the light. Right, so it still stays balanced and I call it the exposure balance and not the exposure triangle, to balance. But when we add artificial lighting, and I don't mean like constant lighting, I mean, an electronic flash, a brief and brilliant burst of light that comes from a strobe or an electronic flash. Those two. Exposure controls become separated. So now our flash intensity or our flash brightness stays consistent on whatever it hits. So let's say it's, I know you do a lot of wedding photography. So let's say it's the bride and groom outside of their venue and it's a beautiful day. So you light them with off camera flash. That intensity is going to stay the same every time it fires. So as long as your clients are in that flash, Cone of light, their exposure is consistent. So now your shutter speed can go faster or slower to adjust the sunlight or the ambient lights in the space. And that's where it becomes so powerful to help me control that contrast because now I can really, I mean, in layman's terms, I can control the sun. To an extent that way, or I can control the brightness of the reception or the brightness of the home or whatever place we happen to be.

Raymond Hatfield:

So, I appreciate you, you sharing that, that next question for beginners. once they understand and I'm sure that they've heard, balancing or expose for the ambient and then add in your flash so that you can get all that exposure. Yes. The next question I always seem to hear is why even bother taking the flash off camera? What is that going to do for our photos?

Cris Duncan:

Okay, well, that that hits my 2nd priority, right? My, my hierarchy, which is to create shape form and dimension and try to render a 3 dimensional quality on a 2 dimensional media. And so that means we have to have highlight mid tones and shadows. So, the more we can get it off camera into a. 45 or greater angle from camera to subjects. We're going to introduce a shadow that's visible. there's a shadow, there's a shadow there. If the light's on camera, it's just on the back of the person. So you don't see it. So I want to move that shadow around to the side at some point to give me that depth.

Raymond Hatfield:

And I know that this is kind of hard to talk about because this is a, is an audio based podcast, right? People and then trying to figure this out in their head, but like, why would you want shadow on somebody's face? Are we talking hard raccoon eyes? like what does that look like from your perspective?

Cris Duncan:

well, sticking to portraits. Cause I'm, I'm assuming that's probably where a lot of your listeners are. I'm looking for. For those three things I want highlight, which is the brightest part of face, the mid tone, which is the natural part of the face, and then the shadow, which is the darkest part of the face. I want all three of those, items on five parts of the face. It's the five planes, that's the forehead, the nose, both cheeks, and the chin. So the shadows aren't raccoon eyes, the shadows aren't, half the face is in light and half the face is in shadow. I'm trying to make sure I have good light and on the forehead, the nose, both cheeks and the chin. And I call those the five planes of the face. And that's what, gives us the dimension. And, I'm sure a lot of your listeners took art class in third grade or second grade, and that may be recent for some, it may be a long time ago for others, but in my art class, we drew a circle and it just looked like a circle. And then you shade one side of it and it starts looking like a ball. Right. It starts having that dimensionality. And then so one side is bright and one side gradually gets shaded and that's the same thing with photography. I want to create that shading to give me depth without the shadows. You don't have it. And if you're photographing something that's dark tone, darker skin or dark clothing, then you need highlights. You don't, on Caucasian skin. You see the shadows that render shape. That's how your eye perceives it on darker skin. You see the highlights that help render shape. They're both present It's just relative to the tone. It's on so that's what I'm looking for

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh, that's like that's next level stuff to try to imagine there in your head when getting started Yeah, so then kind of walk me through a little bit I guess before we move forward because I got some questions specifically about like Modifiers and whatnot as well. We're going to add on to that conversation. But before we get into that for somebody brand new, right. All that they've ever used before is just their camera. What are kind of some of the most basic components that they need just to get started with, taking their flash

Cris Duncan:

off of camera. Okay, well, before we even take the flash off the camera, I think there's 2 items that a photographer needs when they're going to be working on location, which means outdoors or at a venue, not in a controlled environment, like a studio would be, I would get some type of reflector. I'll just pop out reflector. You know, it's usually white on one side. Maybe it's silver or gold on the other. It could be black. I like the white and black ones. I think you need one of those. Why? why do we need the reflector with the white side, the black side, and then the translucent side? What will that do for us? Okay, well, the reflector will allow you to control the amount of light that hits the shadow side. So we're going to assume now, based on our previous conversation, that we're going to put some type of directional light where we see shadow. Well, maybe the shadow is too dark to your liking or to your client's preference. So the reflector will help. Bounce light back into that shadow side of the face, reducing the density of the shadow. The black side would actually increase the density of the shadow. So if you want more shadow, so maybe you're in a place that it's really flat lighting and you need to try to introduce Like an overcast day or open shade. You need to introduce more depth. The black side helps you do that. Okay. And that's just without using flash.

Raymond Hatfield:

Right? Yeah, I know. That's why. So this is like, if somebody's trying to picture it in their head, we have a person in front of our camera and say off to the left. We have a flash, but then, or no, I take that back off to the left. We have our son, right? It's just, it's the ambient light. And then off to the right, we have a reflector here. All right. So we're almost placing them in the middle of like this sandwich between light and the reflector. is that about right? That's a pretty good visual

Cris Duncan:

for it. Yes.

Raymond Hatfield:

I figured I would try to introduce some sort of food reference since we seem to just do this naturally every time we, uh, Yes, we do. Yeah. Okay. So the person is the meat of the sandwich, the, the sun, and then the reflector there, the bread, the light is the bread. Yes. Okay. Now let's talk about the translucent, aspect as

Cris Duncan:

well. Okay, so the way the translucence does is it helps you modify the size. Of the sun. so maybe they're in dappled light under a tree. Maybe the light is too harsh and they comfortably can't even keep their eyes open to get a nice portrait. The diffusion scrim, allows the sun to transmit through it. Translucent, right? To transmit through it. and that will soften the light source because it makes it bigger and it gives us just a little bit more control on how the light impacts the face. But those are two really affordable tools. to start using granted, you need someone to hold those for you.

Raymond Hatfield:

Not as cheap, but hopefully if you have a child, then you have some cheap labor who might do it, milkshake or something. There you go. okay. So now, getting into the flash side of it, right? So we know that we need a flash, like what else

Cris Duncan:

is there anything else that we need? Since it's off camera, you're going to need something that tells that the camera tells the flasher ready for it to fire some type of radio transmitter or a cord or some type of way to get the signal from the camera to the flash that I want you to fire at this when I press the shutter button, a lot of cameras and flashes have those built in now. So if you're a cannon shooter, a cannon flash will communicate. then you need some type of stand or another assistant to hold that flash. You can't just set it on the ground and have it point up in the air. Gotta have some type of, some type of support, mechanism to hold it. And then as far as a modifier, I always tell my students get the largest one they can afford and they feel safe using. I mean, and the Plains of West Texas, An umbrella bigger than four feet is really, it's really hard to maintain. I mean, it catches a lot of wind. so I would use maybe an Octabox or something outside, but, the problem with the flash in my, and when I say flash, I'm thinking on camera, flash that unit that can go on your camera. It can go off is it's just. That light source is always going to look the same until you modify it. No matter how far away you put it or how close you put it, or if you put it to the left or the right or off to the side, it's such a direct intense light source. It's always going to produce a very crisp and hard light quality. is that not natural? Is that why you want to change that? I wouldn't say it's not natural. Our experience has been that it's not as flattering because it It reveals more imperfections in the skin because it introduces a more defined shadow. So if you have raised texture on your skin through wrinkles or acne or, eczema or anything like that, it's gonna, exaggerate that. Whereas a softer shadow will diminish that. So I see a softer shadow through a modifier. Is that right? The larger, the light source we can get, the softer we can create the shadow to be. so you could even use that translucent diffuser. We just talked about and place it in front of your flash, just like you would the sun and enlarge that source.

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay, so let's go there because that part of the conversation I was ready to have a little bit later, because I feel like the size of a light source can be a very hard thing for new photographers to grasp. In fact, when I was in film school, it was a hard thing for me to grasp, like the larger the light source, the better the light. And I could never, I never understood it until I actually saw it, but those who maybe their brain works a little bit better than mine, you can help, describe why the physical size of a light source Is important.

Cris Duncan:

Yeah. I will try to do it the best I can on an audio podcast. Yeah. All we can do is try. All we can do is try. We can always try. Let's just stick with portraits, right? And think of the average size of the human head, right? So maybe the size of a football or a soccer ball, right? Depending on how slender or chubby the person may be. Okay. and most human heads are about the same size. Once they hit probably, adolescence. Okay. So let's look at that square footage. Let's just call it one square foot. A face is one square, but we're just going to call it that. Well, our flash, if we just use our flash, it's about five square inches, six square inches, right? It's two by three, two by four, you know, three by four, something like that. so that's a big difference between one square foot and six square inches. So that size, relative size difference is great. So that smaller size of the light compared to the larger size of the subject is going to produce A very defined shadow edge, very crisp shadow, like you would get on the sun when you go out on a bright, sunny day. So if we can use a four foot umbrella or a three foot octabox or one of those pop out translucents that now is maybe, let's see, maybe eight square feet. Well, that's quite larger than our one square foot face. And so it's not just how big the source is, it's how big it is relative to our subject. And so, I just try to always look at it as really relative space, right? is this light source physically bigger than my subject? If it is, you should start seeing softer light quality. If it's smaller than my subject, you will get crisp defined light quality.

Raymond Hatfield:

So the physical size isn't enough. Right. We can have a four foot, you know, say umbrella, but if it's relative size is smaller, say it's like 40 feet away, correct. We're still going to get, say the same effect as if it was just a bear flash, a foot away from our subject.

Cris Duncan:

Does that, is that correct? Yeah, it's size relative to distance, but most photographers won't put it 40 feet away. They're going to end up placing it about six to seven feet away, maybe a little, you know, somewhere in that range.

Raymond Hatfield:

is there some sort of, I don't know if there is or not, I've never really thought of this. Is there some sort of mathematical equation to determine what the relevant size of a light source should be? Obviously it's a bit subjective, to your subject. I

Cris Duncan:

would think it would just be trigonometry. You'd have to draw some type. So let's really get this complicated. Go. It's the co-sign of the tangent to the adjacent angle of the light being, you lost me . You totally lost me. You know, some I don't know of like a quick mathematical formula. you know what I tell my students? it's kinda like when you stand far away from something, I can pinch your, you know, you can pinch someone's head in this little bitty space between your thumbs. Yeah. You know. or you've seen those perspective photos where someone looks like they're holding up the leaning tower of Pisa. Well, they have to be a long way away to do that, to change that relative size. So that makes the leaning tower of Pisa look really small compared to that person, right? If they get closer to it, Then they can't have that same person that same relative look because it's obviously larger. Yeah, and so

Raymond Hatfield:

is that I do this trick with my kids Because they always love to see you know every every once in a while There will be a moonrise in the evening and they're like look at how big the moon is like why is the moon so much? bigger Like in the evening than it is, you know when it's say it's midnight and it's in the top of the sky And I had them do this experiment where it was like, if you just take your pinky, right? And you hold it out at arm's length, you can cover up the moon with just your pinky. Your pinky nail whether it's and that's how you'll know that when it's at the horizon It's the exact same size as it is when it's up in the sky It just appears different and I think for them that helped to understand like oh Maybe being surrounded by trees or like other buildings changes. It's Perceived relative size. I suppose correct. Yeah But I thought that was interesting. So when it comes to using something like an umbrella, right, because an umbrella is, I mean, for most photographers, it's the first modifier that they buy, it's one of the cheapest. It can fold down very small. They can take it with them wherever they go. And then it can also open up large. Right. So, is an umbrella even like a good modifier to use? Because with how cheap they are, does that mean that they're garbage quality? Like from your perspective, is that a good starting

Cris Duncan:

modifier? Absolutely. I think they are. and they sometimes are included in a, in a starter kit. Right. and they're just, less expensive because they cost less to manufacture. Right. It's just passing the savings on to the customer per se. I think an umbrella is a, is a great modifier, and we could spend a whole podcast on which modifier is appropriate for which job. And you could get 10 photographers in here and probably have 10 different opinions on that. but an umbrella will definitely, you know, Create a larger size if that's your, if you want to get off of the look you always have from just an off camera flash, you're going to have to modify it. And an umbrella is an easy way to modify it without a lot of different type of attachments and rigs to connect it. it's hard to put a soft box, a big soft box and a flash that gets really complicated. It's not complicated to put a large umbrella onto a flash. You just need one little piece, an umbrella adapter that connects to your stand and your flash and you're done. And that's probably a 15 piece. I mean, so that's very affordable as well.

Raymond Hatfield:

So then I think my mind, the question becomes, how do we get the best looking photos out of an umbrella before we should be investing in something like a soft box or a different type of modifier?

Cris Duncan:

well, for one, it increases the size so that that's already going to give you, and I'm not saying it's a better light quality, it's just going to be a softer light quality, which at for portraits tends to be more pleasing on the client's end. The hard shadows just. Somehow don't seem to be as accepted. At least that's been our experience. You know, everybody's different. Every client's different. and it allows you to maybe photograph more than 1 person in nice, consistent lighting when you have a larger light source. and this, yeah, so, I mean, I think it's the ease of setting up. It's going to help. We still want it on a direction. So we still want to introduce highlight, mid tone and shadows still want those. I think your listeners if they haven't done this before, would be quite surprised at the difference. It would make and it's noticeable. There's a lot of things that give you a subtle difference And it takes more than a tuned eye to kind of see that but this is like whoa. This is a big This is a big difference. Where have you been all my life type thing?

Raymond Hatfield:

That's what I said to my wife. So let's imagine Photographers, right? They get their flash for the first time, they get their umbrella, they get the adapter to be able to mount the two together. Now what? Are we just putting it right in front of us? Right behind us? Like, where do we position this to just say that we're just photographing one person right now?

Cris Duncan:

Okay.

Raymond Hatfield:

That flash go, how do we get a good photo?

Cris Duncan:

I think a good starting point is 45 degrees. So if you draw a line between your camera and your subject, that's your one line. So 45 degrees to the left or right of that, positioned towards your subject, that's going to automatically introduce highlight, mid tone and shadow at that 45 degrees. And about 6 feet away, arms length away. I'm doing all these motions like people can see me, uh, you know, like arms length away. That's a good starting point. And then from there you can do fine little adjustments, but that'll introduce you some really nice quality light. That's going to be sellable and pleasing almost 99 percent of the time.

Raymond Hatfield:

So, is this something that like you set up in a park or is this like specifically just a studio thing? Like, where can you set this up?

Cris Duncan:

I think you can set it up anywhere. In a park, obviously be wary of the wind. That's going to be your, your biggest component with an umbrella outside. So you may need someone to still hold that and to keep it, keep it steady or sandbags. And, you know, then you're just getting into, heavier stands. I mean, there's lots of different ways to secure it, or in the studio or go to someone's home or a wedding venue, hotel. wedding chapel, all the different venues they have for that. Absolutely. you can set one up and tear it down and, probably longer than it takes you to set up your, I mean, less time than it takes you even set up your camera. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay. I got a question for you and this is going to be like, again, day one. minute one of setting up this flash and umbrella setup. Cause I just realized, or just remembered rather, that I had seen this in a Netflix show once, and I thought to myself, what in the world are they doing? When you set up the stand and the flash and the umbrella, what direction should it be pointing? Should the flash be pointed into the umbrella, which is, In between the flash and your subject, or should it be turned around to then bounce the light from the umbrella onto your subject? Does that make sense?

Cris Duncan:

Yes. Well, there's two types of main umbrellas. There's one that's called the bounce umbrella, where the outside of it is going to be black and the inside is going to be some type of reflective material, white or silver. I prefer the white ones. then there's a translucent umbrella where the whole umbrella is this. kind of shower curtain white material. If you're using the bounce umbrella, black on outside, white on the inside, I point the shaft of the umbrella towards my subject. So the flash is pointing away from the subject into the umbrella, and then it bounces back. If I'm using the umbrella that's shower curtain material translucent, then the shaft of the umbrella is facing away from my subjects. The flash is still oriented the same. It's still into the umbrella. Either, either one I use, the flash is still. Going into the opening of the umbrella, just if it's bounced, the shaft and umbrella points towards the subject. If it's translucent, it points away from the subject.

Raymond Hatfield:

Perfect. from your end, like what's the difference between those two and how should somebody decide if they're just getting started?

Cris Duncan:

the difference between those two is really how the light exits the modifier. it's going to exit it relative to its shape. And I know that we're getting really complicated maybe for radio, but since the translucent is going to be more dumb shaped, it's going to send light in 180 degrees. Anywhere that it's translucent, the light leaves it in that direction. And so the balance is not quite as dome shaped. So it leaves it, more narrow where the translucent will leave it much wider.

Raymond Hatfield:

So what does that look? Is that just a change in, shadow on the subject's face or what?

Cris Duncan:

It could be a change in the subject space. You know, if you're in a, wedding venue and there's white ceilings, the translucent one is nice because it's going to send light up to because that dome shape is facing the ceiling, facing your subject and facing the floor. So, it's going to send light to the floor. It's going to send light to the ceiling, which may give you a greater range that that light is. Is effective where a bounce umbrella sends a much narrower beam of light that it may not hit the ceiling or the floor,

Raymond Hatfield:

right? This a hard question. Is there a hard and fast rule for when to use each one? Or is it could you use both for either?

Cris Duncan:

Absolutely. I think you could use both. I wouldn't say they're interchangeable because there are those subtle differences. but either one of them would yield, yield good results. I prefer a bounce umbrella. Personally. I think the light leaving it is more efficient, meaning it's more consistent across its output from like edge to edge of the light or a translucent tends to have a brighter center and a darker edge. So you get more of a hotspot. With the light leaving a translucent, then you do a bounce.

Raymond Hatfield:

So, I'm just working through this one. I haven't really been in this situation. I haven't used a bounce umbrella before. Would a bounce umbrella be better for, say, group portraits, rather than just like a, say, a single headshot or something?

Cris Duncan:

I can't, man. Uh, my answer is usually, it depends. Right?, Raymond Hatfield: just from your you know, a family of five, right? And they're getting together, you, you need to illuminate them somehow. what would you Chris Duncan choose? I would use a bounce umbrella. Again, because the center, the way, just the way the light hits the umbrella and, bounces back and comes out of it, it's more efficient from, I say corner to corner, but it's round from edge to edge, the middle, most, most modifiers or the center is brighter than the edge. That's just the nature. That's the science and the physics of it. A bounce umbrella seems to make those differences less. And a shoot through umbrella.

Raymond Hatfield:

Gotcha. Let's say somebody is getting started. maybe they know how to use their camera. They know how to control it. They've even used flash before a little bit. and they're getting started shooting weddings, right? They're going to take their flash to a wedding and now it's time for family photos, you know, up at the altar. This was something that in the beginning I struggled with, cause I would only bring the one. Umbrella with me and I, you know, everything on the right side of my frame, they were very well lit everybody on the left side of my frame. Not so much. Sorry, grandma. Right. what's the answer to that? Is it changing the modifier or is it multiple umbrellas?

Cris Duncan:

both I would stick with an umbrella in that scenario, just because it's so easy to set up and tear down and it doesn't take up a lot of space when you collapse it like a soft box or something would. I would just move to a larger umbrella. Maybe indoors. You can get away with a 7 foot umbrella, which your listeners goes, man, that sounds really big. And it is. And it is. but again, it's that relative size to my group. Now I don't have one head that's a single square foot. I may have 6 or 7 or 12 or 15. So now I've got a larger square footage that I have to light appropriately. So my light needs to be a larger square footage relative to them. So I think a good rule of thumb, I'm going to stick with bounce umbrellas because I think, you know, Personally, they're the most, they're the easiest to control and they get you the most consistent spread of light across, across your image is the shaft of the umbrella should point to the farthest end of your group.

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay. Gotcha.

Cris Duncan:

And that'll help even out and distribute the light as efficiently across the group as possible. It may not be perfect. It may still take some adjustments, but the more the shaft is pointed towards the farthest end or past that point, the more efficient the light will be across the group.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah. was one of those things where it's like, I always found that I could, I could salvage the photo, in editing, but it was never ideal. and I think that that's one thing that a lot of times I would forget, that it was Even though, sometimes because of the speed of a wedding, you may not always be able to get it like perfectly right and be able to do it, by the books every single time. We do still have some flexibility in editing. When it comes to Flash, from your perspective, do we still have that same flexibility or do we have to take different, approach to editing?

Cris Duncan:

no, I think you still have that same flexibility. If you just happen to misposition your light and one side got a little bit darker, you still have the ability to open up shadows and our tone down highlights or stuff like that. You still have that ability to do. but where I think it's even more powerful using flash and you're editing is now, as we talked about earlier. My ambient light is controlled by my shutter speed, right? We separate those two exposure controls, from flash just determines my aperture and ambient light is now affected by my shutter speed. So now you can change your shutter to introduce more light in the background or even on that shadow side for maybe a window or lights that are already present in the space too. So it gives you so much more flexibility using off camera flash.

Raymond Hatfield:

Let me ask you a question. just so that we can hopefully again, wrap our head around this concept, right? When you change your shutter speed, right? Let's say that there's no flash involved. We're just out and we're taking a photo. When we change our shutter speed, the photo gets brighter or darker, right? That's the only setting that we're going to change.

Intro:

Correct.

Raymond Hatfield:

When you introduce flash and you change your shutter speed, whatever's being hit by the flash, the exposure doesn't change. Correct. Can you explain that for new photographers?

Cris Duncan:

Yes, because your, flash moves at the speed of light. So, so time has, unless you have to, and unless you move into high speed sync, right? and I don't do that very often. So let's ignore that technology. Let's just forget high speed sync exists. And until you get to that point where you need high speed sync, time is not a factor on your flash because it happens So fast. So when you press the shutter button that flash fires, whatever it hits, we're assuming is your subject, your person, whatever it hits in that instant is burned into the sensor. It's exposed. And then the amount of time that that shutter is opened after that flash fires, if you're using first curtain sink or before that flash fires, if you're using rear curtain sink burns in anything that flash does not touch.

Raymond Hatfield:

So when we change our shutter speed, that's not adjusting the flash, right? Dill. So what that's doing is that's just changing the amount of time that the light not coming from the flash is hitting our sensor. And that's why that light either becomes brighter or darker, but that's correct. That's correct. Cool. That's correct.

Cris Duncan:

We know that there's a difficult concept. if you've only photographed an ambient light and you've only photographed on a program mode. You know, where you've used exposure compensation. this is like, what? Hold on. Let me hear it. Say that again. Yeah. Yeah. 1, 1 more time. so I think to really do this effectively, you need to go to manual mode. Because then you would only change your aperture based upon how bright your flash is. And you would only change your shutter speed based upon how bright or dark you want the non flash areas. I call it the ambient. Typically, we can refer to it as the background. It's the park behind our subjects, or it's the reception hall at the wedding, or, you know, the altar behind our people at the wedding, or whatever it may be.

Raymond Hatfield:

I know that talking about these things and, it's challenging, I think sometimes to have these conversations because this is technically the beginner photography podcast, you know, and I try to have these conversations that are geared towards beginners, and hopefully allows them to expand their knowledge base some so that they have somewhere to start going towards when they feel like they've reached that. And that's why I think today we have to have these conversations. So one, I just have to say, I appreciate you coming on here and, not only talking about light from an authoritative space, right? You've had a lot of use of light, a lot of experience with it, but also, trying to, speak to it in a way that. Many beginners can better understand, without making us feel, dumb, because that happens a lot in this space, right? you can just start talking about the, you know, the trigonometry and the, and the cosine, you know, all those things, but you didn't do that except for that, that one time, of course, but we, I was joking. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Of course. so one, I want to say thank you for that, but now that we have this knowledge, what do we do with it?

Cris Duncan:

You gotta, gotta practice. Where do we start? Maybe start with, you know, don't torture your kids again to do this. Okay. Guilty. Guilty.

Intro:

Yes.

Cris Duncan:

I have so many pictures of my daughter with a scowl on her face. Like, really? You gotta take, you gotta do this again. but. Get something that has shape to it. You know, I mentioned the basketball. Maybe, you, um, have some type of helmet or something that looks like a face, you know, a costume or whatever, something that can render shape. You know, it could even be a balloon or a soccer ball or something like that. Photograph that, right? And put your umbrella on your flash about 6 feet away again at that 45 degrees is a good starting point. So, if you're in, if you're on the, if you move your umbrella to the right side of your camera, the shaft should point to the far left side of your. The right side of your subject, or your left side from camera position, if you move it to the left side, it should be the opposite because the shaft always goes to the farthest edge of my. Image and take some pictures, right? Go to manual and start adjusting your shutter speed and look how the background changes brightness. Don't adjust your aperture if the exposure on your on your subject is correct and visually see it. do this in your kitchen, do it by a window where you can see the window light change. Do it, outside. and just, and you got to practice it, you

Raymond Hatfield:

got to do it. You got to do it and just listen to these conversations or watch videos. You have to actually do it. I'm still waiting, for one person to just watch every YouTube video on photography without ever picking up a camera and getting some sort of like degree or calling themselves a master photographer. But I haven't seen it yet. Uh, which is just proof that you have to do it. Chris, again, thank you so much for coming on today. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. This is your, well, technically this is your third time on the show. And I feel like every time you come on, I get some sort of email or, a message saying like, wow, that Chris guy really helped me out, figuring out some like, for everybody else who's listening right now, who maybe, they're trying to figure out. Where do I go with this? You know, what do I do? Where can we learn more about you and any sort of lighting resources that you have?

Cris Duncan:

Okay. well, name's Chris Duncan. C. R. I. S. There's no H. Instagram's ring. See a lot of our work. my website is C. J. Duncan seniors dot com. We do a lot of high school seniors. See someone work there. Some commercial work at C. J. Duncan dot biz. if you want to see some of that. As far as learning resources, I've been doing education for a while, over 20 years in the industry and have a resource. It's learn. findyourfocus. org. And since we're talking about umbrellas, I think it's fair to say I did a class at Imaging USA in January called the Umbrella Academy. And it was all using umbrellas as the modifiers to create unique, different looks for your subjects. And I have a free resource there. If you want to see more Lighting diagrams and some images that I created using those lighting diagrams. You can get that for free. And that is that learn dot find your focus dot org courses slash umbrella. It should be on the home page. It says umbrella Academy. There is a premium access if someone wants more and they feel like I just need more information. You can pay for the premium access and we go through. Really what we talked about today, like how to position a lot, where to place a lot, how the size impacts the light, this exposure question, like how is aperture and flash and shutter speed all separated. Now, we go into that more detail if that's something when your listeners need, um, as well, but if you just want some of those inspiration for lighting diagrams, that is free. Just make sure you click the free preview button on that course.

Raymond Hatfield:

Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the beginner photography podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend. Start a conversation, grow together. That is it for this week. Remember the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow.

Intro:

for listening to the beginner photography podcast. Keep shooting and we'll see you next week.