Bounce Flash

Connie Almueti proudly displays her plaque and medal which inducts her into the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame at Fort Bragg, N.C., Sept. 25, 2012. Almueti has served seven commanding generals over 42 years as a Department of the Army civilian, and has been a critical contact for countless commanders in the field. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   In case you haven't been following along, I've kind of been gushing about Flash. I talked about flashing in the morning, Flashing  in the evening, and Flashing at Supertime.

[This is a reference to the  song"Sugartime" which I honestly have no idea how I know about this song, possibly I heard it in an ad? Moving on...]

   Needless to say, I'm a big fan of flash. In fact, a friend of mine said the other day,

"Appreciate natural light, but bring your own just in case."

   Okay, enough gushing. So lets talk about this photo. Connie was inducted to the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame, hence the medal and the plaque, and I was tasked with writing the story.

   Unfortunately administrative work doesn't exactly lend itself to very memorable photography, and really the big story was that she was becoming a member of the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame, a first for any woman. So I said to myself,

"Damn the torpedo's lets pose a photograph!" 

   This was also the second attempt, the results of the first weren't really up to snuff. Yes, I have had plenty of bad days photographing, luckily I was able to go back and try again.

I wanted soft light because it's just more flattering. My favorite method of getting soft light is to bounce it off the ceiling. I aim my flash straight up, crank it up to 11 and let it rip. The light actually bounces off the ceiling and cascades downwards like fairy dust.

You'll notice this isn't quite the exact same picture, I can't

find the one I posted. Regardless, it's pretty awesome, in my

opinion to have anything of mine hanging in the pentagon.

Note: High ceilings laugh at your attempts to bounce flash, many flash units just don't have the umph to launch light beams 10 feet up and 10 feet back down. Also some ceilings will absorb the light.

   The only real problem was that the glass on her plaque was the right height to just catch to tip of my flash. That's a big no no because it breaks the fourth wall. I didn't have access to any sort of off camera flash, not even a bracket, so I just had to work with what I had. I strongly considered removing in in post, but decided against it because editing anything in post is frowned upon in Army photographs, more so than posing. As such, it sits there mocking me.

Turns out, this photo is hanging on a wall in the Pentagon. The small photo shows it hanging out with some other photos. As far as I know it's the only photo of mien hanging in the Pentagon, which to be honest is probably more so because of the content (Connie is a pretty big deal) and no so much the awesomeness of the photo. Regardless, I think it's pretty cool.

If your interested in learning more about Connie you can read about the story I wrote here: http://www.dvidshub.net/news/95899/general-aid#.Ul4bWFA3v8k