Lighting subjects to achieve a particular look is one of the things I find the most fun about photography. It is also one of the things I find most challenging.

Udi Tirosh over at DIY Photography often has great information.  He says of himself, “I started this site, as an amateur photographer, who needs studio equipment, but can’t always afford to buy the expensive, branded top quality studio stuff that you can find on photo equipment stores. So… I began looking for alternative.”

He recently wrote a great article explaining how he used a single light to create an interesting image.  His inspiration was David Hobby over at Strobist.  I’ve spoken of “The Strobist” before, and hold him in very high esteem.  I encourage you to read Udi’s article.  It reminded me of a little project I made for myself some time ago.  I got my inspiration from Scott Kelby.  Scott wrote about how he used a table napkin to bounce light onto a dish at a restaurant he had visited.  If you read that article, Scott mentions the technique in his response to the question “What’s the secret to getting great food shots?”  Scott did his work with natural light, but somewhere (perhaps also from Scott)  I read about using a similar technique to make the pop-up flash on top of your camera more useful.

Using the on-camea flash and bouncing off white paper.

In the image above I held a white envelope at a 45-degree angle in front of the pop-up flash.  This caused the light to be directed toward a sheet of white paper at camera right.  You can see the reflection on the upper part of the right side of the cup.  Light from there was further reflected off another sheet of paper at camera left, causing that weaker highlight on the left of the mug.  There was some bleed through of light from the flash itself in the center as you can see from the strong highlight there.

It’s interesting to play with things like this because it can make the difference between a snapshot and a really good image when you have no equipment with you.

Please remember that it’s like saying, “Thank you” when you use links on my site to begin your online shopping.