There’s something comforting about a photographic title that includes the word “handbook.” It conjures up a reliable, dog-eared scout manual stowed in the outside pouch of your backpack—dependable and unpretentious. Vanessa Joy’s newly released The Off-Camera Flash Handbook fits right into to that model. The book, as it should be, is rich with practical advice, and  its message is approachable and friendly, “friendly,” being a key word in this case–the art of electronic flash, after all, is an area where shooters can always use a friend. And that, the recently named Canon Explorer of Light declares, goes quadruple for the legion of natural light photographers–from newbies to professional retail portrait and wedding shooters–to whom her book is principally targeted.

Getting Started and Oh, Yeah, Off-Camera Flash Sucks…

Like so many of us, Vanessa has “been there” herself, self-exiled to the kiddie’s table of natural lighting by her past reluctance to face any artificial light source beyond an idiot-proof, on-camera  speed light.  That reluctance, she admits, is not necessarily unfounded. “Off-camera flash sucks!” she declares in the book’s very first line, and there’s no denying that  OFC can be a balky tool at first. But it’s a powerful game-changing skill for any commercial shooter—in short a tool you need to master. As Vanessa writes in a simple hypothetical: “What if you didn’t have to worry about an overcast day?”

The Nuts and Bolts of Off-Camera Flash

True to its utilitarian pedigree, Off-Camera Flash devotes Part I to pure nuts ‘n bolts, but with none of the Farmers’ Almanac-style charts and complex tables. It’s a pretty basic, pared down discussion that covers the simple physics of electronic flash, different configurations of lamps, light modifying accessories, such as grids and reflectors, soft boxes, umbrellas, filter gels, etc.  In the no-nonsense vernacular familiar to her SRO audiences at workshops and trade show appearances, Vanessa breezes through Part I with an important caution:  “This book is not for the photo guys with light meters around their necks and the Inverse Square Law tattooed on their forearms…I don’t want,” she tells her core readers, “to bore or intimidate you and hinder you from picking up your flash.”

The Core: A Broad Range of OCF Scenarios and Examples

The book’s real core is Part 2, 32 richly illustrated, narrative chapters, each profiling a different application of off-camera flash technique. Practically all of these scenarios involve augmenting or enhancing some available light phenomenon, from dawn to dusk, from bright sun to overcast, even rainy, skies, from creating “motivated” lighting through doors and windows, creating gold haze and creating golden hour to replacing lighting from existing fixtures, adding  fantasy special effects and much more. Each of these chapters is its own standalone module, illustrated with sleek, elegant samples and some of the most comprehensive BTS photographs and diagrams you’ll find in any book or lighting tutorial. 

For anyone still caught up relying exclusively on natural light for their portrait, wedding or glamor imagery—and serious enough to be worried about it—Vanessa Joy has brought to your world a straightforward, entertaining key to a versatile creative tool that will change your life.