I'm Blind! : My Follies with Flash Photography

I'm one of those photo guys who thinks that nothing beats the rich glow of a summer sunset.  If I had it my way, I'd probably shoot in nothing but that kind of light.  The problems with that are pretty obvious. Firstly, sunset light only lasts about a couple hours a day.  The whole thing about the sun only being outdoors all the time doesn't help matters either :-).  

So in comes flash.  I don't use it very much.  I should probably practice with it more. And my lack of experience with it is probably glaringly apparent in my photos :-D. (See what I did there? Flash. Glaring.........  If you were cool, you would of laughed at that :-P)    You can probably tell in these photos that I took for my recently concluded photo journalism class, too.

The assignment was for an environmental portrait using flash. 

My subject: cousin, Teso, who is an ex-death metal guitarist.  (Thanks again, homie!).

So back to flash, after you get a decent exposure, you really have to look out.  It's easy to adjust for blown out foreheads and eyeballs and large harsh shadows.  But you have to be careful.  Because sometimes it's easy to miss little things. Like over-exposed reflections off objects away from the subject or small-uber harsh shadows, like the one on Teso's face from his hair.

On top of that, it can be hard to notice those things off the tiny LCD monitor on the back of your camera.  

Don't get me wrong.  I don't hate flash, and I'll probably like it more practice I get with it.  It's uber-cool when it comes to adding motion blurs, por ejemplo.

THE ROOF! THE ROOF! THE ROOF IS ON FIRE!!!!!

But, to conclude.

Moral of the story:  Nikon needs to invent an affordable and portable minnie sunset sun for photographers.

Thanks for those who read this thing (Hi Mom!) and feel free to leave any comments, questions or critiques below.