As a photographer you know that great photos depend on great light. We also know that great light is either found or created. For portrait photographers the problem is that their subjects may not be available at a day or time that great light can be found, so it must be created. You can do this by using Off Camera Flash or as it is commonly known, OCF.

You could use the flash on your camera but that generally doesn’t lead to pleasing results. You aren’t able to create the beautiful shadows that are part of great light that way. On camera flash is very flat and straight on and, in most cases, that equals boring.

Taking the flash Off Camera gives many more artistic and pleasing possibilities, however getting the flash off camera and understanding how it works has been frustrating for many photographers. I’m going to break it down into some simple steps that I’ve found makes light bulbs go off in photographer’s heads (pun intended) and say “That’s it? That’s all there is to it? I can do this!”

For this exercise use Manual Camera AND Manual Flash. While TTL auto flash has come a long way it still tends to be very inconsistent from shot to shot. Once you see how relatively easy it is to do manual flash you will love its consistency.