This month, Dr Harrison Child shares his top tip for mastering dental photography and standing out from other dental professionals.
Hello, my name is Harrison Child. I’m a cosmetic dentist and I also teach dental photography.
My top tip for producing high quality dental images is to stop using the ring flash and instead invest in a setup which has a twin flash and flash modification.
Although a ring flash is a nice, easy and compact set-up to use, unfortunately it doesn’t produce very good quality images.
The main reason for this is because the light is very direct and harsh, which means it creates a lot of reflection and shadowing. It also doesn’t pick up on much of that surface texture or detail.
A twin flash, on the other hand, creates much more balanced illumination because the light is coming in from two different angles, which means it will pick up on all that lovely detail and texture on the surface of the teeth.
And then the flash modification at the ends of the flashes, which can come in the form of these soft boxes or bounces, will create what we call soft lighting. This produces that beautiful, smooth and professional finish to the image.
And that is what will make your photos stand out from every other dental professional still using a ring flash.
Harrison Child
Dr Harrison Child graduated from the University of Manchester in 2012. Since qualifying he has worked in general practice both in the UK and Australia.
Harrison has always had a keen interest in the creative side of dentistry and has focused on pushing his cosmetic skills throughout his career by attending multiple courses and completing a PGDip in restorative and aesthetic dentistry.
Harrison is now based in Liverpool where he works as a fully cosmetic dentist with a focus on minimally invasive aesthetic techniques.
On top of his clinical career, he also teaches dental photography. Over the past two years he has run a series of successful webinars teaching the essentials of dental photography, as well as providing in-house practice training.
In addition, recently he has began a full-day dental photography workshop course in partnership with Avant Garde Dentistry.
Harrison is also very active on social media, running a clinical page @dr_harrison_child and a photography page @the_dental_photographer. His photography page provides lots of tips and tricks on how to produce high quality clinical and artistic images.
Outside of dentistry Harrison loves food, drink, rugby, fitness and enjoying life with his two sons.
Watch more Dentips:
- Mahrukh Khwaja – managing mental health
- Hassan Shariff – managing dentine hypersensitivity
- Aly Virani – post-operative instruction packs
- Anna Peterson – social media
- Nicola Gore – composite heaters.
Follow Dentistry.co.uk on Instagram to keep up with all the latest dental news and trends.
