7 Pop! Pop!: 
Natural Light, Little Flash
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Flash and photography have been together since the very beginning, but theirs can be a volatile relationship. If not used limitedly and with precision, artificial light can create artificial pictures, calling into question the authenticity of your photos. In order that you don’t push the volatile relationship between flash and photography to that breaking point, start with the available natural light and use high-speed film rather than flash. Once you’ve assessed the natural light available to you, you’ll be able to better target specific areas of the picture that require flash. You should also avoid mounting the flash on the camera. Doing so is convenient, but gives off a fairly unnatural frontal light. Instead, carry a flash cord of 3 meters and either hold the flash in one hand as far away from the camera as possible, so that the angle on the subject’s face is not frontal, or place the flash on a small tripod and direct the light to whatever needs lighting; the background behind a subject, for instance. You may also use the flash indirectly, against a wall, a piece of paper, or a special reflector mounted on the flash. This is easy and straightforward in black-and-white photography, but be careful when you attempt this with colored photos. Reflections from colored surfaces may change the hue of your picture.
The picture above was taken in an aluminum factory in Slovakia in the early nineties. The huge magnetic field of the electrically powered machines wreaked havoc on my cam-era. I took all the batteries out and worked in manual mode, thereby having no other option than to use the available light. But doing so was to my advantage; the natural light just happened to accentuate the depth of the room, while providing the photo with visual dramatization, as well as a touch of reality.
No flash was used in this picture. The only light source was the natural light coming through the window. The old Abkhazian man was reading a newspaper in the morning after his breakfast. A couple months after this picture was taken, he was forced to flee his home and his kitchen table due to civil war.
This last picture was also taken without flash, but for entirely different reasons. Because of danger of explosion no electrical devices were allowed in this Albanian coal mine. We walked more than half an hour into the mountain, until we had to crawl on all four. This picture was shot entirely manually. The only source of light were the head lights of the mining colleagues.