My story started like a lot of other family photographers. I began outdoors, slowly learning how to use natural light. After a couple years, I tried my first in-home newborn session and it was love at first click. I was proud of my ability to find the good natural light in each unique family’s home. Hugging windows and rescheduling super overcast session days got me through years and years of newborn sessions. Until one day, it didn’t.
It was a sunny Spring day as I parked in Boston and walked to my client’s home. I didn’t think anything of the light situation since a sunny day had never failed me before. When I walked into their house, I started to sweat as I took in the lack of windows. Their primary bedroom was garden level (half below ground) with tiny half windows at the top of the ceiling. The living room had vaulted ceilings with almost no natural light that reached the floor, just tiny windows two stories up. Then I got to the nursery…the nursery had french doors to a juliet balcony that overlooked the second story of the living room and zero windows. There was hardly any natural light in the living room to begin with and zero reached into the nursery.
This wasn’t just any old nursery though. It was a thoughtfully decorated gorgeous nursery. Lovingly applied wallpaper, antique crib…you could tell that the parents had put so much thought and care into this room. My heart sank as I realized that I did not have the skills or equipment to photograph this room. I gently told the clients that I really couldn’t get anything great without natural light. I attempted a very low shutter speed, and then eventually turned on the overhead lighting. Everything looked *terrible*. It was not work I was proud of. The whole session was a humbling experience as all of the rooms in their home were complicated low light situations. I left that session feeling embarrassed and humiliated.
Over the course of the next couple weeks, as I struggled to edit that session, I realized that I was doing myself and my clients a disservice by not learning to harness the power of flash. While I could get by in most homes by hugging windows, was that what in-home newborn photography was all about? Yes, of course the primary goal is these amazing moments, but one of the major draws of in-home (for me) was the uniqueness of each family’s living space. Window light is great…but how did baby’s parents decorate the nursery in anticipation of them? What kind of art does this family love? What are their favorite colors? Are they plant people? People who love color? Sad beige fans? If we are stuck hugging windows aside from in the ideally lit homes, we are left with galleries that don’t celebrate these families as individuals.
With all this swirling around in my head, I began my flash journey. On camera flash seemed like the natural next step, but it was too cumbersome to manage during an active lifestyle session. Constant adjustments and bouncing in new directions distracted me from the magic that was going on in front of my camera. I also could never get bounce flash to look as natural as I wanted it to. My goal was to use flash when needed in challenging lighting spots and have it blend seamlessly in with the rooms that were natural light only.
Eventually I landed in the world of off-camera flash and that’s when the magic started to happen. Once I practiced over and over to get the technique to create the look I wanted, I couldn’t believe how much freedom I felt. Freedom to never worry about another dark room. The ability to center a family on the primary bed and not have to sit them off the side to face a window. The flexibility to never have to reschedule on a family because of a stormy day!
After 18 months of using off-camera flash in every possible in-home situation (we have a lot of unique homes in historic Boston!), I knew I wanted to share my knowledge with the rest of the lifestyle family photography community. Flash felt so overwhelming to me at first, like I was learning a foreign language. I knew I wanted to create a course that truly started from step one. My course, Off Camera Flash for Natural Light Lovers is geared towards photographers who were just like me. Photographers who had never experimented with flash before and felt completely intimidated even by the idea of what to buy and how to turn it on…never mind how to connect the flash with a trigger and where to point it!
When I think back to that client’s garden level apartment, I now think of it as a turning point for my photography career versus a failure like it had felt in the moment. That experience was the exact push I needed to grow and master using off-camera flash in my lifestyle indoor sessions. Sharing this knowledge in an easy, candid way with other photographers has become a part of the journey and I am so thankful to be on it.
Author Bio:
Lyndsay Hannah is a Boston-area lifestyle, newborn, and brand photographer with over a decade of experience capturing families and brands both indoor and out. She’s passionate about helping photographers gain confidence with light — both natural and artificial — through her course Off-Camera Flash for Natural Light Lovers. When she’s not behind the camera, you’ll find her hiking, gardening, or chasing after her three boys.
