Indoor Reception – Dark Ambient Light | Flash For Bright Editorial/Commercial

It happens quite often that your clients will want a bright, modern look to their images, but the venue/space offers only dark, ambient light. Not to fear, as we can add flash to create a bright editorial/commercial look. This is the type of look you might find published on wedding blogs or printed in magazines that feature a venue or vendor’s services.

Here are the steps and considerations for creating bright editorial/commercial images in dark ambient light:

  1. Shoot from the shadows: Frame and comose
  2. Expose to remove bad ambient (fluorescent)
    1. Use shutter speed to add back good ambient (candles, pins, etc.)
  3. Flash from existing light direction (fill the space)
    1. Single level diffusion needed (beauty, soft box, etc.)
  4. If needed: Double diffuse to soften (higher flash power)
    1. Fill entire reflectors/diffusers, watch direct spill!
  5. Flash to override ambient
  6. Analyze with histogram/highlight alert
  7. Adjust shutter for more/less ambient