( I wrote this for Facebook back in January but it was so darn perfect that I am posting it again, here. Besides, how good are our memories really? If i hadn’t have told you, you could have sworn you were reading this for the first time, right?!)
I was flying back home last month and there was a guy a couple of seats away from me who was taking photos with his phone non stop. He seemed to be documenting his entire flight & sending everything to his wife (she’s one LUCKY gal hey?)
This wasn’t the part that bothered me most though. What really made me twitch was the fact that he was taking photos of the screen in front of him WITH THE FLASH ON!!! I knowwwww, right?!!!
Wait! What? You don’t get it?
Hmmm….
So the thing is, to begin with, I totally judged this guy for not turning his flash off but in hindsight I guess that’s kind of unfair. I mean, to me it seems really obvious that if you flash a little light against a reflective surface, it will bounce light back and cause a nasty white ball of reflectiveness in your photo, but I guess that’s because I have spent a long time learning about photography?..
Just like people who have spent their days learning about all things chemistry & think that it’s super obvious that the compound Sodium Chloride is composed of one ion of Chlorine bonded to one ion of Sodium (obvs!)
So, let’s get back to basics and tackle the seemingly obvious things that are sometimes not so obvious. Starting with the flash on your phone.
For the most part, you can just turn the flash off.
But before that, take a look at the size of your flash. If you haven’t turned it off yet, keep it on & then take a photo whilst looking at the back of your camera. You’ll see your flash light up (it will also flash in your face, sorry about that!)
Did you notice how tiny it is? How much do you think it can help in lighting up your photo?
You guessed it – it pretty much does nothing.
At most, it will light up the object that is immediately in front of you, making it look extra white & washed out, whilst throwing everything else into darkness. Does that sound familiar? Keep your flash off and instead just get used to using apps like PicTapGo to quickly add that extra pop of light/take away a little bit of shadow.
Ending with deep quote below as I couldn’t find the right place to shoe-horn it into this post:
“Nothing is as invisible as the obvious” – Richard Farson