Flash Fill

Craver gave us headbangers a theme that just isn't something I often do. Flash fill. The header has to be a picture taken with a flash.

I didn't get out to take something with the flash, or in. I don't have many flash pictures that are worth sharing.

I searched my files for some. And although I am not positive that this shot of the grandkids lining up to show off their fancy duds was taken with a flash, I think it was. (The glare that is my flash bugaboo is the hint.) I think it is at least a fun shot.

I much prefer natural light, and when the light is not quite right, minor manipulations of the digital image through editing software does for me.

It brings to mind my old flash maxim, though. When I was a college student many years ago, I spent an academic year in Florence.

It was the time of the instamatic camera. Do you remember these?

(Images borrowed from Wikipedia)

This was the kind I had, with the flash bulb. My more up-to-date classmates had the latest ones with flashcubes. Flashcubes had not yet come to Italy, and I was actually better off with the older model.

I also was often able to get better pictures than the friends with the fancy cameras--because I wasn't overwhelmed with settings to deal with. I had three options: Flash, No flash, Spent flash. The shutter speed was slower with a bulb in place, and a spent bulb gave just that extra time for dreary day shots. Oh, yes, I forgot the fourth possibility, hold your hand out to shade the lens  when it was too bright.

 

And film. Film was not cheap. If you were on a budget, you considered your shots. Even at that, I took hundreds of pictures.  

 

A flash has a limited distance. If a flash would be necessary, and the shot was too far for the flash to light, I would not take the picture. Some of those I travelled with just could not get that into their heads.

 

Our group spent the Christmas holidays in the Middle East and one dusk some of us found ourselves on the Mount of Olives looking back at the old city of Jerusalem.

 

And consequently my maxim became: You can't light up the city of Jerusalem with a single flashcube.

 

My headbanger friends are likely to have some better ideas for their flash headers. You can find their blogs through the links in my sidebar, and they will have their new headers up by Wednesday afternoon.