Feeling Hungry? + Flash Usage

Food is a big part of our lives, well at least a few times a day anyways. I don't have any great photos of food, since I am not a chief, but I know what I like to have as a snack while watching a movie!

Okay so I'm not just going to talk about food photography, no matter how tasty that subject may be! The last few days I have been experimenting with my SB-800 off camera again to see what effect that has on different subjects.

The effects of off camera flash can be very pleasing, or not if used incorrectly. Subjects that are highly reflective are extremely hard to photograph, even with off camera flashes and that is one area that I have been trying to approve my technique. My general impression is that a single off camera flash is not good enough. The light is either too defused or not defused enough. Even the light that I use for my makeshift light box causes reflections on some subjects. A single off camera flash can also lead to what is seen in the photo below, shadows! If I had two flashes in this case the shadow could have been avoided, most likely. Having shadows isn't always a bad thing though, because shadows can give a sense of depth to your image. So it is a matter of what you are trying to achieve. I'll post more thoughts on this in the days to come, because I am planning to pick up a second off camera flash for more experimentation.