Flashgun Stencilling

Posted by Glyn Wade

So Hayley volunteered to do a night on flashgun stencilling and everyone went ‘great!’ then later asked each other what the hell it was. But it sounded good. And it was.

After a short introductory presentation I have to admit I still had no idea what flashgun stencilling was but the practical side of things soon sorted that out. Basically you shove your flashgun in a cardboard box that has a gel over one side and a pattern cut out over the top of it. Think of it like stretching a chewed jelly baby over a torch and you’ll be way off the mark and wonder whatever is going on in your head.

Maybe once you get to the pictures below you’ll see what I mean and forget all about jelly babies (but you’ll probably find yourself at the shop later buying some).

Now, once you have spent a lot of time cutting out the stencils to go over the coloured gels and taping everything in place on the cardboard box you need volunteers to flash said flash guns and move them around whilst the pictures are taken.

Once we’d worked out the best way to shoot said volunteers, a conundrum of photographers set their shutters at 4 seconds, their aperture at about f22, ISOs at 100 and their white balances at couldn’t care less and we were off. (nb as there was no collective noun for a group of photographers I have made one-please feel free to use it. You’re welcome.)

The volunteers moved their boxes around in between flashing and this soon developed into some bizarre interpretative dance which then transmogrified into a recreation of a Pacman game with accompanying sounds. I’m not sure the sounds were necessary and probably weren’t picked up by the cameras so you’ll just have to search for the noises on YouTube and play them along as you view the pictures below.

Now picture four grown adults prancing about with said Pacman adorned boxes, flashing at a phalanx of photographers whilst fiddling with phones playing felicitations of funky tunes and….it’s just another normal night at Willfield….