On photographic education

"The best photographic education is as interested in the inquiry as in the resolution, and the medium as a vehicle for the lifelong accumulation of information and knowledge. Curiosity fuels most photographic endeavor; memory and fear often provide the heat."

--Stephen Frailey

A friend of mine came over this afternoon to go over a program we're giving on Thursday to our photo group about using off-camera flash. It's something both of us are learning more about. Even though we've both used studio lights/strobes for the past several years without much problem, coordinating small off-camera flash units seems, for some reason, to be a bit more tricky. For static situations, it's nearly the same as using studio lights. For mobile situations, like a family gathering, wedding, or other event, the variable are always changing, so making adjustments on the fly are a bit more involved and harder to pull off.

We're giving a general overview of why it's better to use off-camera flash rather than on-camera, how to balance flash and ambient, a bit on the inverse square law, and a couple example set-ups, all in about an hour. We're also hoping to put on a 2-day workshop to cover these elements in more detail. I think we'll be able to bumble through without getting ourselves into much deep water. We decided to announce at the beginning that there will be No Questions during our program. That way our true lack of knowledge won't be discovered.