17 Creative Uses of Lens Flare

I think photography like everything runs in fashions. Not so long ago extreme shallow depth of field was the preferred look, especially in food photography. Then came off camera flash, just about everywhere you looked someone had jumped on the bandwagon (note my cynicism) now it is lens flare. I also like using shallow depth of field and off camera flash and have been known to include a bit of lens flare in shots but I don’t use them all the time on every subject, being selective in creative tools is as important as where you point your camera otherwise it just becomes a gimmick that you use whilst you wait for the next trend to come along. I try to encourage my students to be unique, to show the world what they see through their eyes rather than just following the latest fad.

Lens flare is not difficult but a little help in any process is welcome and this, from those good folks at Lightstalking, is a place to start

“For many years in photography, lens flare was actively avoided by photographers. Flare, which is basically light scattered within the lens due to unplanned reflection and lens impurities, was considered as something that ruined a photograph. Equipment like lens hoods were invented to help prevent it. But times change and so do fashions.

These days, not only to many photographers not mind some lens flare, they actively seek to get it to add some creativity to their shots. And, to be fair, quite often it looks pretty cool. Check out these great examples of creative lens flare and look at the resources at the end to find out how to shoot with or without lens flare in your own shots.”

77/365 by meghannash, on Flickr
Angelena by Mike Monaghan – www.bluesunsetdesign.com, on Flickr

absolute by paul (dex), on Flickr

Metallica at Rock Werchter 2009 ♫♪ by crsan – christianholmer.com, on Flickr

For More Examples Click Here: 17 Creative Uses of Lens Flare (And How to Get The Effect Yourself)

Lens Flare Links and Tutorials

• 4 Simple Ways to Reduce Lens Flare
• 5 Tips to Add Creative Lens Flare to Your Photographs
• Lens Flare – A Technical Explanation
• Understanding Lens Flare

Shooting Into the Sun

I find that photography has fashions in the way that food, music, and of course clothes do. Not so long ago the pages of glossy magazines were full of images that employed very shallow depth of field, just the very edge of the raddicchio in focus please. More recently off camera flash has been the thing, just about every aspiring photographer has decided that portraits out side with dark smouldering skies and a subject illuminated by harsh off camera flash is what is needed to be creative. In the last year or so it looks to me as if lens flare is where you need to be to be hot. Lots of hexagonal globes of orange light, flare so strong you can only just make out the subject, the feel of hot blinding light. I have nothing against these trends, I do find their over use and the band wagon jumping tedious, it is as if the young guns of photography are waiting to be told what the next big thing is before they can make inspiring pictures.

Anyway, I found this well constructed site called Great British Landscape, I think the title explains. Here I discovered a very full and well written article by Tim Parkin on lens flare, how to remove it rather than how to get it. There is an introduction by Joe Cornish

“Almost unbelievably now, it isn’t that long ago since camera and film manufacturers encouraged would-be photographers to take pictures with the sun ‘over the shoulder’. Quite simply (and understandably) they knew that there was a better chance of the picture ‘coming out’. What they did not say was that it was also a far less interesting way to use light!

Today, modern cameras make a mockery of the exposure problems facing our photographic forebears. Nevertheless, shooting into the light still brings with it a multitude of problems. Excessive contrast is one, while lens generated and exacerbated flare is another. In this article Tim describes and provides various methods for mitigating or eliminating most of the major flare types.

Why should we worry? Well, self-evidently flare is a distraction, an unwanted blight on the picture. Flare draws attention to the fact that the image was generated photographically by a lens. So it screams, inelegantly, !π@&*>photograph<§Ω! If we notice the flare we are not so engaged by the subject matter.

As always in any form of expression, there are exceptions. Film-makers have deliberately used flare for decades as a way of evoking a sense of blinding light, and heat… but in many cases that may have been because they had little choice. Light sources in the image area are always prone to creating flare, especially with complex multi element lenses like the zooms that film-makers typically deploy. There may be some circumstances to keep the flare, and let it play a role. But generally this will be for artists self-consciously referring to the process, to the medium.

Hopefully Tim’s article will inspire you to confidently take the risk of going ‘into the light’. In landscape photography especially, no other lighting is able to potentially create so much emotional resonance.”

Read the article here http://www.landscapegb.com/2010/09/shooting-into-the-sun/