Switch: A Night in Direct Flash
Switch was made at Cafe Del Mar in Phuket, after dark, with a flash bolted to the top of the camera and pointed straight at whoever was in front of it. No bounce, no diffuser, no apology. Thirty-one frames made the gallery.
This one was shot on digital, which may surprise anyone who reads this journal regularly. It was the right tool for the night. A club at one in the morning is a hostile place for film: almost no ambient light, a crowd that moves faster than you can focus, and a shutter that needs to fire again the moment the next face turns. I would sooner choose the camera that suits the room than the one that suits my reputation.
Direct flash is an unfashionable light, which is part of its appeal. It is blunt. It flattens the background into black, throws a hard little shadow behind every ear, and catches sweat and glitter and gold jewellery in a way nothing softer can. It does not flatter. What it does is tell the truth about a certain hour: the heat of the room, the damp hair, the people who came specifically to be seen and were perfectly happy to be.
The method, such as it is, is simple. Set the camera to a slow shutter, somewhere around an eighth of a second, so the coloured stage light has time to smear across the frame. Let the flash freeze the subject in the middle of that smear. Get close, closer than is polite, and ask permission with your face before you ask with the camera. In a room that loud, a nod does most of the talking.
What surprised me was how willing everyone was. A camera with a flash on top announces itself, and people either turn away or turn towards it. Most turned towards it. There is something about a hard, bright pop in a dark room that feels like an occasion rather than an intrusion.
The frames I like best are not the posed ones. They are the half-second before, or after: a laugh just breaking, a hand coming up to fix a fringe, someone looking past me at a friend who has just arrived. The flash turns those small moments into something close to sculpture.
The full set sits in the gallery, at jacksonseebohm.com/portfolio/switch. It is best looked at late, with the lights off.