Sooooo, admittedly, I may not have taken any photos with on-camera flash with the black background…. HOWEVER, I did experiment heavily with the gels, so I got a good feel for how they worked in conjunction with the external flash, and I got one photo which demonstrated to me how to use gels to make skin tone more natural, so although it was MOSTLY fun, I totally learned something.

These two images are best paired together, because together they taught me the difference between one and multiple gels. The microwave on the left was one maroon colored gel, and the photo of ninja Greta on the right was with 2 or 3 maroon gels on top of one another. It showed me that the effect of gels is not always as powerful as you might think, and that sometimes, multiple of one kind might need to be stacked on top of one another to achieve the right effect.

These images here….. this was all silly fun, but looking back on them now….. I can see Greta’s shirt and the light in the background of the first two photos reacting to the extreme flashes of color differently each time. Those two details look like they’re different in the pictures, despite the fact nothing changed between shoots besides the gel. As for the final picture on the right, it helped me understand what the tamer, more transparent gels can do; They help adjust skin tone in a positive way such as in the next image

After taking a normal flash photo, I saw that Greta’s skin looked more pale because of the unnatural white light of the flash, but with the help of a light brown gel in this photo, Greta’s skin looks much more natural and properly toned color-wise. This was the photo here which helped me realize the value behind gels in photography.

Just as an aside, light orange/brown filters are great for an “80’s party” atmosphere when using a flash, keep that in mind yearbook people, you might RLY need that XD

This photo here, I thought it was the best and most stunning one I took from the whole photoshoot. There’s so much that goes right in it, the sun glows through the geese’s wings, the rule of thirds is followed, the geese line up with the hills/mountains in the background, some are flying, some standing, some taking off….. It just feels like a fantastic photo and there’s so much going right in it. The only grip i have with it is minor, and it’s the tiny house structure in the background on the left, but it’s easy to overlook, so I’m overall INCREDIBLY satisfied with how this photo turned out

Once again, my favorite rule in photograph, that of thirds, is being followed again. It was really cool to see the geese line up (ish) in the picture, and I do have another rendition of this where they’re spread out all over, but it felt too cluttered to be a good picture. This feels better; The more the geese are “neatly” arranged in a far photo, the better it seems to turn out

This was where the telephoto lens helped out greatly, in these next few photos. This one in particular, I was at most as far from Bella & Brin (lol B&B) as they are from the house in the background, and still, the lens gave me the zoom needed to not seem like I was miles away! It feels like a really good serene photo, like an encapsulation of the countryside.

Again, telephoto is incredible. This time, geese were flying past us overhead and a little in front, and I was able to zoom in and capture individual geese if I followed the motion of the flock, albeit with some blurriness. This one stands out as one of the less blurry pictures, and has some interesting space just THERE on the right.

This one was one of the moderately blurry photos, however, I like it because of the blur. It’s not so blurry that it’s unappealing, it rather shows the motion in the flock, especially on the goose in the upper right there. You can practically SEE it beating its wings, and I loved that

This photo has similarities to the first (hence a good photo to end on, calling back to that one), but there are some other bits about it that I really enjoy; For example, the red house in the background give a very farmhouse feel, adding to the countryside feeling of the photo. The geese in flight AND walking is also just a great picture too, especially since you can’t tell if they’re taking off or setting down, that nice bit of ambiguity does add something to the picture, although I know not what it is

(For all photos, settings are 1/250 TV, 100 ISO, 9 F-Stop, +2/3 exposure bias, and 75-300 telephoto lens)