Lighting Lessons!

So this was taken in the late afternoon; there was still a lot of natural light around me. No flash here.

This was taken at night; it was almost completely dark, and the only source of light was the lfash.

This was taken at about dinnertime, but it was raining out. Flash was on, but there was some natural light. That natural light was obviously interfered with by the rain.

I think really, the lighting really showed me that when to use the flash is really important, and that sometimes, its more angle than what the current light is. Below are two pictures of my siding that I took while it was raining. It is literally the EXACT same shot, but the bottom has flash, the top does not. I really started to play with that in the last few days.... while I knew that natural light was technically "better", I always just let the flash be on automatic. However, since the assignment was lighting, I played a bit.... the flash totally washes everything out. Sure, the focus is a bit better, and the shadows are a bit more dramatic, but look at the color that is captured from the rain and sunset when the flash was off! It was exciting, and encourages me a lot to shut the flash off more often.