Hand held flash

[jmbradd]

While I toil through my last year of college (and hope that the recession ends by the time I graduate) I'm trying to find ways to have more fun with photography and spend less money.

A friend of mine has an old arkon flash or something from his canon ae-1. I didn't want to risk putting it on my camera so while hanging out at night doing some long exposures I got the flash out, had him stand in a good spot, had the camera set to bulb, used my remote to open the shutter, triggered the flash manually and then closed shutter, this is the end result.

I know a lot of people that do fantastic night exposures use gelled flashes to add color to specific areas of their shot (which with a Pentax dslr is a 2 player game due to the insane remote trigger). I plan on getting (or finding the 3 I lost) some cheap flashes to mess around with and one good p-ttl flash for on-body use when i'm doing family events and what have you.

Anyone else get a great deal of enjoyment trying to do things while lacking the "proper" tools to do it? I don't know what it is about me but I think i'd rather take an hour to get a good shot using mixed flashes and cheap triggers (or my friends as triggers) than 15 mins with some pocket wizards and strobes with stands.


ps. Its just bare flash, I haven't gotten to the point of building my own light modifyers

[jmbradd]

quick question...looking at this i'd like to bring out the hair more... maybe another flash from camera right with a grid to bring it out a little? I'm trying to pick up as many techniques as possible

[roy]

this is a nice shot.
there's nothing i like better than have a prob and solve it..
i also love those DIY gear..

[Venturi]

Great job!

Another cool/fun thing you can do with bulb mode and a flash is dress up yourself or your VAL (Voice Activated Light) in black and have them walk around the subject popping the flash to "paint" the scene. You can create some really nice affects this way.