Grandmaster Flash

Forgive me for going way off-topic here. In case any fellow photographers read this blog, and supposing you want to get better at lighting, I've found no better source than Strobist. Strobist is an amazing blog by Baltimore Sun shooter extraordinaire David Hobby. David works on the premise that almost any situation can be beautifully lit with one or two carefully controlled off-camera flashes — a.k.a. strobes.

If you're anything like me, you might scoff at that notion. You might think it's useful to fire a little fill flash here and there, and otherwise hate strobes' pathetic little guts because even when you bounce the flash off a wall or ceiling, you get at best acceptable — never beautiful — results.

David proves us wrong every day. With his portable kit — often as barebones as one flash and one small stand plus some accessories — he takes photos that range from good to memorable to gorgeous (when you shoot four or five news assignments a day, you can't knock 'em all out of the park, but he has a terrific batting average nonetheless).

I'm floored by the fact that David's following has grown to more than a hundred thousand frequent visitors, and that it took him just over a year to get there. But the success is well-deserved.

There are other photo geeks with worthwhile blogs. David tops them by first owning a unique niche, and then pouring his detailed instructions and thought processes into fresh, funny prose that puts many a professional scribbler to shame.

As an added bonus, he also has a wicked, admirable do-it-yourself streak that will soon have you using cereal boxes and Pringles cans to fashion highly useful but dirt-cheap flash accessories.

David reminds me why I love the Internet — it gives people the chance to be generous with their knowledge and expertise. And if they're lucky (and good), sometimes they'll almost accidentally build a kick-ass worldwide community of people who would not have met — let alone benefited from each other's input — in any other conceivable way. Such is the case with the Strobist group.

Check out the photos made by international Strobist enthusiasts and tell me that's not fabulous work.

If you feel inspired, David's Lighting 101 posts are collected here, and Lighting 102 is about to get underway. All of his web offerings are priced right — they're free — but if you find Strobist as useful as I do, David doesn't mind if you pitch five or ten dollars his way. "My children do so love to eat," he notes wryly.

[© photo David Hobby / the Baltimore Sun]