There is one basic rule on using flash when photographing portraits at Lake Tahoe with the lake and view behind: IT’S A MUST! It simply is not possible to have the same amount of light on your subjects as you have in the background without a flash. Strong flash. Good, powerful equipment.
And that’s what people want. Them in front of the lake looking really good without shadows on their faces and the lake looking perfect behind them.
Knowing how to do this kind of photography is sort of what makes you a bit old school and traditional, but this is also how you become an expert portrait and wedding photographer in Lake Tahoe. Believe it or not, very few of the modern, savvy photo journalists know how to do this. We’ve been seeing it, or should I say haven’t been seeing the lake and the view in their images? 
Eric and I have been photographing portraits and weddings together for a long time. Because it’s the two of us, we decided from the beginning that we can do both style photography. Because Eric is brilliant especially with the science part and equipment, he takes care of the flashing. And I shoot mostly available light but in the meantime I’m always fully prepared to slam my flash onto my camera if conditions call for it.
What the bottom line is going to be here (on the bottom of the post): Why not use both? Give your customer the best of both worlds. That is always what I shoot for too during my portraits. I love to use available light, because it’s forgiving, it’s pleasing, it’s soft and dramatic at the same time. It’s flexible. But once I’m down at the lake, I put my flash on and give my clients the view they want to see!
Let me show you a few examples on when flash is needed, when it’s not and when you can get away without it.
These images right here are the classic must-have-flash samples:
Here the first one of Kera was flashed, because she was in the shade and there was no way I could have had the view and the clouds behind her so vibrant without blasting her. (Unless I was going for a silhouette effect)
Then I discovered this pleasantly soft, but strong enough sunlight to match the light of the background to put her into. That way I didn’t need my flash and I still had good light on her and fairly good exposure on the lake. An entirely different look!
Here Eric and I are shooting at the same time… He’s flashing, matching the light on the couple to the brightness of the sky and I’m exposing to have the couple light enough, not worrying about the background. Now, did it work both ways? I say yes, IF you give your customer both versions so they can have the view as well.
Same thing here… The first one is Eric’s and the second is mine. Once the sun is gone behind the mountains, you might get lucky with amazing overall ambient light that allows an even effect. So both work here too!
Sunset silhouette photos are exceptions of course. No flash required for those.
On this wedding party shot Eric’s color image is perfect! Mine shot at the same time is back lit, glared, I lost all the colors in it… Yuk! But… Because the expressions are great, I tried it in B&W and it worked okay. So yes, you can tweak sometimes and have images of precious moments with no view as long as you have the perfect one as well!!!
These three are similar examples. Who wouldn’t love Eric’s impeccable image? Mine next to it, not so much… It just simply doesn’t work with the strong back light, shadows on the faces and washed out colors. I adjusted the third image a bit to make it work in B&W. (Oops, forgot to retouch the utility box in the grass…)
So YAY 
to available light if you know how to use it properly and you still have the highly desired view images as well.
We still believe in providing both styles and that’s really where we have offered an extended and outstanding coverage and will continue to do so. We have also experienced that where most of our customers instantly fall in love with images that are captured spontaneously, more often with available light, at the end, they end up choosing the ones that show off beautiful Lake Tahoe.
