Naughty Nochul (노출) -- How to Shoot like Dazed with a $20 Flash

I don’t shoot safe. I don’t shoot “right.” A lot of people don’t like my pictures.

Model @jingruus exposes a bit of leg for the flash overexposure.

They’re too “strong.”
They’re too “racy.”
They’re too “sexy.”
They’re too [insert negative adjective].

Intrepid model @klubkancerkid braves both the cold and the flash in a hanbok.

What they're really bothered by is the fact of their over-exposure. In both English and Korean, “exposure mean pretty much the same thing. In Korean, “exposure” is called nochul (노출) and can mean how much skin is shown in a picture, even as it is also a photography term indicating how much light is being projected on a piece of film or sensor to get proper “exposure” of light through a faster or slower shutter or an iris ring in the lens (aperture) being more open or closed.

Model @_lana__k_confidently does a winter hanbok look right.

Actually, I don’t even find that my pictures really expose all that much, at least in terms of actual skin. When I talk with many Korean models about shooting concepts, they often say they don’t like too much nochul (“exposure”) — and they’re usually talking about skin.

“RAW” (actually, the LARGE JPEG straight out of the camera) shot of model @nabijenn struggling with the pins on the hanbok while I initially set up my portable studio flash with a large reflector umbrealla to create a very nice, diffuse light that would project shadows with nice, studio-style edges. If you look at the bottom of the dress, you can see how the shadow falls. The light is tasteful and Vogue-style safe.

Though I’m just getting things set up (and the power setting on the strobe is just a couple clicks too dark still), I can see how the shadow is going to fall (to camera right). The effect is too “nice” so after shooting the obligatory “studio”-style shots that are offset from the axis of the camera lens (far off to the left side of the camera and diffused with a huge umbrella). So I pulled off the umbrella, chucked it aside, and shot her with a relative “bare” bulb, for flash that ain’t “nice.”

Oops! Whoa — too much! Gotta dial down my onboard, cheap, 1980s flash now that the studio unit is out of the picture. That’s too much nochul, for sure!!!

Now that the studio unit is out of the picture (well, actually, it’s accidentally IN the picture, as you can see the stand and the cord and batter is on it, and my onboard flash is still slave-firing the bare bulb on the studio unit that is still on its stand), you can see that my onboard camera flash that is hitting her straight on is casting no shadow (or rather, casting the shadow directly behind her such that you don’t see it). You’ve got a mix of shadow around her face being cast down, since the strobe on the stand is up high, while the shadow cast from my flash onboard my camera casts “no” shadow. But now THAT’S too much nochul of another sort.

By now, as the model struggles with her hanbok, since it’s made for a stick-thin body with an A or B-cup at most (@nabijenn is a EE), and the safety pins had all popped off — iI had decided to abandon the studio unit altogether and switched its power OFF and gone straight to the cheap flash mounted on my camera. Notice the relative lack of shadow around either side of her body. But the brightness of the flash is a bit dim, since we’re flying solo with just the light of this flash.

SO, without changing the power of the flash, I decide to simply close distance, since doing so increases the brightness, while moving back decreases it. So, I brightened her up by getting closer, and also by rotating the camera vertically so the flash is now to the left side of the lens, it casts a hard, clear shadow to the right, while that shadow is invisible on the left side of the model. This is due to the parallax effect. So she’s brighter, with an edgier vibe, and with the summer heat and long shoot destroying her foundation cover, more of that harsh, directional flash light is reflecting back off her skin, which also increases the candid/amateur/paparazzi feel of the flash effect.

Now, by getting in closer, but now with the camera in horizontal position which places the flash directly above the lens so there is no parallax effect and now no shadow, and the camera in even closer with the flash seet to the same power, she is starting to overexpose. The lighting nochul is reaching its upper limit (especially in the skirt, which is closest to the camera and flash) and thi is pretty much the effect as I want it. But I don’t want the model’s hand in her crotch, since that’s a bit too direct and on-the-nose for me. So, I have to reduce another kind of nochul.

So I recenter the dress and have the model move her hand away from the danger zone and instead place it inside the stocking top and hold it up that way, while moving the skirt to cover her top AND bottom more. And I went back to edgy, parallax side flash to edge it up. So, less nochul but more edge. @nabijenn adds her own suggestive expression and hand posing to balance things out and… BOOM a strong image is born. But one that actually doesn’t show much skin, yet you feel like it does.

And back to straight-on strobe with camera in horizontal orientation to eliminate most shadow and keep her overexposed, plus some cleaning up in post by maxing out the CLARITY and SHARPNESS sliders (which actually degrades the image), and doing some face retouching and filtering so we actually do go to blowout of her face, and that’s just the kind of nochul we liking.

An alternate cut. This feel naughtier?

Maxed out a lot of things here. But this happens to be my favorite, obligatory “Chuseok” hanbok shot.

The shots are strong, but I do maintain that I don't think there's actually a lot of skin showing besides what you could see and a lot of standard Instagram pictures these days. Mostly shoulders and arms and a bit of leg, but the crotch is covered and we're mostly talking about suggestive facial expressions and hand poses to present the sexuality of the pictures, as opposed to showing actually sensitive body parts or skin too close to such areas. It's mostly suggested or implied sexiness. And I would strongly argue that a lot of the avant-garde feeling of the shots have to do with the aesthetics of the overexposed flash, and other effects. Because you can just imagine if they were all softly exposed, like in a studio, and without the actually (quite rare) background of hangeul graffiti, and you don't get the full Barthesian punctum of the bottom shot.

So, I’m planning a class/workshop on how to cheapflash shoot and I’d like to gauge interest in both who would like to learn as a photographer and who’d like to be models for the class (and it’s also a way for photogs to find models and vice versa). So fill out the little form below and let me know in the message when you might think the best time of the week to be. I’m thinking a Sunday brunch very soon. How about you?