Character shots and fill flash.

This is my friend Charles. I have known him since 1979, we go a long way back. The passions that run in his veins are similar to mine; we are both fond of being outdoors, kayaking, playing games, and exploring. I have had the pleasure of his company on many of my travels and we have lots of stories to tell about each other.

I have numerous photos of him, each one shows some aspect of who he is. There are the shots that show what he looks like and then there are the shots that show aspects of who he is as an individual. By this, I mean his personality. I call these photos character shots, and they are meant to infer the internal nature of someone. A good character shot does both.

The setting is an integral part of producing an effective character shot. For my friend, it means being outdoors with some form of vista behind him. It could be taken any place where the person finds comfort and purpose. We were visiting Hemlekyn falls in Wells Gray Provincial Park and the opportunity to capture this image came up. Nice background, sun out and in the right place, and an interesting foreground object to include in the photo. I always like having the person's hands doing something at these moments. Here he is stretching to touch the top of the broken stump. The position of his two hands with the tree's descending edge also nicely frames his face.

There are numerous components of the photo that describe who Charles is. The bright colours denote an effervescent personality. The mottled nature of the jacket, blemished with paint or plaster, suggests someone who works a lot with his hands. The hat, which happens to be mine, is worn with a bit of a silly tilt to it which helps accent his goofy demeanor. It also protects the sun from his face which makes the use of fill flash all the more poignant. You can see parts of his backpack and water bottle/tube as well, again alluding to the outdoors.

Normally I would use a DSLR with external flash to do this shot as the more powerful flash unit allows me to fill shadows quite a distance away. However, this photo was taken with a bridge camera (an all-in-one camera with a 1 inch sensor and inability to change lenses). The relative focal length of 37 mm allowed me to shoot at an aperture of f/3.5; ISO was set to the minimum value (80). The built-in flash was powerful enough to fill the shadows on the face caused by the hat blocking the sun. If you look at the cliff face just to the left of the tree trunk you can see how dark full shadow appears to be.

Built-in flashes usually don't have enough power to fill a subject photographed outdoors. Most kit lenses that come with a system camera (DSLR or 4/3 CSC type) do not have low enough apertures or fast enough flash synch speeds to maximize flash distance. Altering ISO can improve flash distance on cloudy days or when shooting in shade. However, even if the built-in flash can't completely fill the subject, it can still lighten up the shadows a bit and produce a better image than if it wasn't used at all. Try it for yourself; take a few shots of a friend outdoors with and without the flash turned on. Review the images on a computer to see if the flash made any difference. Cell phones have quasi-flashes that are even less powerful and often completely fall short of making any difference in such situations.

Thanks for reading.     Ericspix     Eric Svendsen