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
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