Flash, Sometimes
I started using flash because I was tired of pretending Swiss boardrooms could feel like the places I photograph overseas. The feeling was different, so the pictures needed to be different too. Flash became a way to stop chasing atmosphere and start making one.
ISSUE 24
Part of these Field Notes is just me writing down small processes I am trying out. Not big rules. More like: this is what I am working through right now, this is what helped, this is what made me see differently.
For a while I kept trying to photograph Swiss assignments with the same instinct I use abroad. Available light, waiting, atmosphere, meaning in the edges. But inside offices, politics, boardrooms and the NZZ building, that often started to feel dull.
This really started to make sense during the NZZ Streitgespräch portraits. Two politicians, one room, one topic, usually tension in the air. With available light it can look polite. With flash it becomes sharper, harder, a bit more uncomfortable. Closer to how the room feels.
So I started using flash. Sometimes just the little flash on the camera. Sometimes a handheld flash, triggered remotely, moved around until the light felt a bit strange or theatrical.
The weird thing is that it made me shoot less. Because with flash, every picture feels more deliberate. You see the frame, the distance, the background, the shadow. You do not just drift and keep pressing. You wait, then hit it.
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