Tip: Ambidextrous off-camera lighting

Cameras are designed for right-handed people. This is fine is you want to hold the camera with one hand while holding a light with the other hand, like this:

But it's a problem if you want to hold the flash to your right. This is essential to avoid your lighting becoming repetitive, and so you don't end up designing your compositions around where your flash will be held. There are a few ways to get that corded flash over to your right but I think this is the technique most of us use as it allows you to rest the camera on your shoulder for extra support:

There is another way to do it though. Believe it or not you can actually hold the camera in your left hand and operate it quite comfortably that way. When you look at this next picture you may well think it would take ages to get accustomed to it, but try it and you'll be surprised how natural it feels:

There are two ways you can hold the camera. You can see above that I was holding the lens with my thumb and index finger, and pressing the shutter button with my middle finger. This next picture shows how you can press the shutter button with your index finger while holding the grip with your thumb and other fingers:

However you do it, your thumb takes the weight of the camera and lens. Here's a close-up of the holding-the-lens technique:

And here's the holding-the-grip technique:

I got this idea from wildlife photographer Charlie Phillips. He holds the camera with his left hand for a different reason, but it occurred to me that it would be useful for giving me more control over my light positioning. I tried it, found it surprisingly easy, and now it's another technique to pull out the bag whenever necessary.