Become Better Photographer: Bouncing Light For The Best Results with Daniel Norton

*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with Daniel on Instagram and Twitter @danielnorton. Be sure to follow Ashley.

Working with just one hard light modifier might be a tricky, and limiting at first, situation. However, there are several ways to work this light to make it softer – by bouncing it. Today we will explore a couple of handy tricks from photographer Daniel Norton and AdoramaTV 

With his beautiful model Ashley, photographer Daniel Norton is telling us about his studio in New York : “…one thing I  do a lot here is I’ll just shoot against this  white wall. And sometimes I’ve  just got one light, and I kind of play  around with it.  I’ve got a Profoto here.  It’s got the magnum reflector on, so hard  punchy light, and of course if we aim it  right at the model, we’re gonna get a very  shadowy look. “

Daniel continues: ” I am going to start in  TTL. One thing I will say is I’m using my 85 mm.  I’ve got it in high-speed sync, the reason  why I have it in high-speed sync is  because, she’s only got maybe  like two feet behind her, I kind of want to be more out of  focus. So I’m gonna go shoot f/2 and 1/250th of a second.”

“This kind of works, Ashley can take the hard light  pretty well. But most people…. you’re not  gonna want this hard light across their  face. It definitely creates a certain  look but it is very specific. So if we  want the kind of more of a conventional  look like you’d want with most people. We want  at least fill in the shadows if not  make the light softer. We make the light  softer by making it bigger, since I don’t  have any other accessories we’ll say…  I’m going to use my wall.”

“I’m gonna turn my light,  and I’m gonna do what’s called  feathering, where I turn it away from her.  I’m gonna throw on the modeling light for a second,  So I can see where it is  and what I want is I’m gonna raise it up a  tiny bit too. Some of it’s still gonna hit  her, and what I wanted to do is, is  basically the lights gonna come  here, bounce, and then spread. We’re still gonna get hard  light, but we’re gonna get some fill.”

“We’ve got still hard light, so see  the shadow behind her.  That’s kind of  nice, and again it works for some face  types, face types, but for a lot of people you want  kind of a big swath of soft light.  So in order to do that, we’re gonna make  our light even bigger.  I’m gonna actually physically turn the  stand, and again raising my light, because we generally  want our light to be coming from above. “

“Now what  have we got here, this…, this is just a  single light hard source bouncing off  the wall. You might remember, it’s bouncing off kind  of a corner. So it’s not just  bouncing off a flat wall here, and  because it’s bouncing off the corner  we’re getting  a little bit of  spread in different directions. “

“So you could do this with a speed light, or a  small flash for sure, but just keep in mind  that, if it’s very tight in the  space, and you’re bouncing it, you lose a  lot of light. “

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Watch the full episode with Daniel Norton Bergman and Adorama TV: