Why Flash Solves Every Problem a Photog Could Ever have

A Love Letter To Flash + How I Became Obsessed With It

The Cobrasnake

So in 2008 I am 16 and I live in Varsity Lakes, which is just a generic suburb that offers no one creative anything, only to push them so far into boredom they might create something extraordinary (I didn’t do this btw I just complained and cried listening to Bright Eyes) the place wasn’t unsafe or horrible it was just full of houses, families and a bus that came like maybe once every hour, sometimes never, mostly never.

Ironically I now browse real estate apps searching for homes in this same area I loathed and grew up in and cry (not to Bright eyes) about how I can’t afford to live there. It’s funny how dreams and priorities change as you get older.

So at the time I had this friend who was really fucking cool - beautiful and creative, impeccable taste in everything. She was a few years older than me and she had a learners drivers license - back then it was fairly easy to wrought the system, and we conveniently kind of looked a like, despite the fact that she was blonde and I was not, so we figured if she “lost” her ID and got a new one I could use her old one to get into nightclubs. Amazingly this actually worked.

This is hands down the most exciting thing that’s happening to 2008 Lucy Lumen.

The main motivation and sudden resourcefulness shown by two bored teens in the suburbs to get into nightclubs was nearly entirely driven by looking at party pictures online of people, both famous and not, taken by Mark Hunter aka “The Cobrasnake”

IYKYK

A snippet of what I’m referring to

You can go and look at loads of the images here if you are unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is THE COBRASNAKE.

These flashy party shots embodied everything I wanted in my life at the time. I wanted to be somewhere where exciting things were happening. I wasn’t really interested in drugs or alcohol even because I would have been worried I missed something iconic. I just wanted to be in the photos really - I’ve since learned that if you lean to the side and pull a sultry out-of-it-face against a wall in your home and take it on a Sony Cybershot or something you can get the shot and just pretend you went to the party, which suits the hermit I now am in my 30’s just fine.

So we wanted to get into two select clubs so we could see what all the fuss was about and get our photos snapped by whoever the D grade version of The Cobrasnake was on shift that night.

Long story short the clubs pretty much sucked and we were kind of bored - we did get our photos taken once at the club and then once at a warehouse gig… and they did look cool, but it really didn’t live up to the hype and the highlight became the Mcdonalds we would get afterwards and the long talks and endless laughter we would have on the inevitably long walk home due to that bus staying true to form, and never showing up.

American Apparel & Vice Magazine

Another big ambition I had as a slightly older teen was to work at an AA store.

I had moved to Sydney and was living my big girl life as a waitress with dreams of being a shop girl at American Apparel but hearing all these tales that, they only hired super skinny girls and you weren’t allowed to wear make up, which meant you had to be naturally beautiful (imagine AA now they would be so fucking cancelled) plus a bunch of other tall tales that led me to believe that my dream job of AA shop girl would have to die hard along with the pervious dream job of working at a video store (inspired by Tarantino) due to being told I had no “video library experience” which I’m not sure how you acquire if no one gives you a fucking chance TO WORK IN A VIDEO LIBRARY. I decided it was a cult and I was obviously not welcome as a member. #stillbitter

AA is relevant here because I found out about it via the print magazine VICE which now seems oddly quant saying you discovered something from printed matter not online, despite how un-quant VICE was.

It’s safe to say that VICE mostly sucks now, but once upon a time it was EVERYTHING.

AA would run these spicy evocative ads featuring a similar skinny no make up Cobrasnake looking girl in the clothes (or a lack there of) caught with harsh direct flash, of course, in the pages of VICE magazine and i poured over them!

So flash, again, is the thing that keeps popping up here.

It’s safe to say that it’s likely a good thing that all those “dreams” I had didn’t come to fruition but they did leave a flash shaped hole in my heart that I have been filling with, well, lot’s of flash, ever since.

I actually just got distracted for about 20 minutes sifting through this reddit thread about how they achieved the look of the ads back then if you want any further reading.

Are We done With The Flashback Now?

Yes.

We can now live in the present which for me is actually so much brighter than 2008 because I get to use flash nearly every time I pick up a camera and I have so many visuals floating around in my head to draw from after so many years lusting after flashy photos and ads.

I now use flash as a creative tool, but more so as a security blanket, because i truly believe that flash makes everything look better!

It’s part of my style and it’s my go to way to deal with any lighting sitch I find myself in. Natural light is great but I don’t wanna be limited by it and miss indoors or low light photography ops that I know will be bangers, especially when the flash lights them up.

Flash is as essential to me, if not more, as film is.

I recently had a night out with Lux, we got Pho, delicious, and then we walked around and took photos with our new KEKS KF-01 Flash Unit and i was super delighted with the results. I paired the flash with my Fuji XE1 which I really enjoy using and we edited all the images with our warm film preset, which has really given them that extra something special.

The reds are popping!

The closest we got to a party photo was this one of me in front of a giant Xmas tree - lol - a far cry from the club scene but still a cool shot!

So I hope my little adolescent tale of how I came to love flash so much has spurred on some romantic feelings for you, dear reader.

I support all and any types of flash but if you do want a sure thing, and a retro looking one at that, then you can use the code “lucy” at checkout to get 10% off the new KEKS KF-01 Flash Unit.

FLASH4EVA

Love Lucy xx

P.S This code is valid for any of the clever camera accessories KEKS have on offer so keep this in mind if you’ve been eyeing anything off.