Backlighting Part Two (Daily S.P.O.T. for 5/5/09)

Our discussion of backlighting continues with a phenomenon known as "Wallylighting."

Say wha?

Wallylighting (n): A type of accidental and/or inadvertant photographic backlighting, most often occurring during a boxing, pro wrestling, or mixed martial arts match, in which photographers directly across the ring from one another take pictures with their flashes at the exact same moment, thus backlighting each other's pictures. Named in honor of indy-wrestling photographer Wallace "Wrestling Wally" Lippmann.

Here's a canonical example, from a December 2007 Women Superstars Uncensored match in Lake Hiawatha, NJ. As you might guess from the name, WSU is an almost entirely all-female wrestling fed, but if you're thinking they must be pure T&A -- or at best, the Benny Hill-level camp of GLOW -- oh, how wrong you would be. These young ladies can WRESTLE, as solidly (if not more so) than their male counterparts.

As for Wrestling Wally himself, he tends to concentrate on all-women's indy feds such as WSU and SHIMMER, so it's no surprise that he and I would both be at ringside.

In this shot, Alexa Thatcher is giving Philadelphia's own Annie Social a particularly nasty hip toss. As you can see, Wally and I snapped our shutters at exactly the same moment, lighting the move almost exactly opposite one another. Notice how Wally's flash has given the shot an almost three-dimensional quality, particularly in the halo of light around Thatcher's hair. This is the whole point of backlighting: giving the illusion of depth to an otherwise flat image. If it weren't for the blast of light on the mat behind them, you'd think the illumination was coming from a "natural" source.

Not everybody is a fan of Wallylighting; some photogs dislike it intensely, especially if you can see the other shooter's flash in their pictures. Me, I'm coming to like ANY kind of backlighting (hasn't it been obvious?). And in a situation like this -- where under normal circumstances, the single flash on top of your camera produces, at best, a rather flat image -- a good strong jolt of "Wallylighting" can turn an okay photo into a terrific photo.

In the next installment: backlighting gone berserk! Don't touch that dial...