A Light Bulb Moment

Yesterday I was watching DVD "Creative Outdoor Photography" which I bought from my previous Frans Lanting Gallery trip. In the video, the late landscape photographer Galen Rowell was showing how he used a graduated ND filter with fill flash to lighten up the foreground. I had known Rowell's love of using graduated ND filters since the filters I used were designed by him, but it was the first time I saw someone use a fill flash in the field. And he used it A LOT!

It suddenly occurred to me that's the solution for a lot of the exposure difficulties I had faced. I used graduated ND to control the exposure on the sky, but so many times the foreground subject was just too dark. I always thought I might need to use stronger ND filters and wondered how come Rowell didn't design them. Looking at how Rowell used the fill flash I suddenly realized that was why. He didn't used a stronger ND; he used a flash!

I thumbed through my failed photos and suddenly could see them in a new light. A lot of them could be salvaged with the use of fill flash, no HDR post processing needed. Some, though might still require HDR, could have more creative result with flash. For example, I used HDR to combine the following two photos to get the exposure in range, but I was not happy with the result; something was missing. I realized if I use a flash on the ceiling of the cave while metering on the small rock I could have a feather effect and it might be more satisfying than a plain HDR.

To quote Shakespeare, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought (Sonnet 30). Fortunately there is still time. Now I just need to practice, practice, and practice.