![]() If you’re looking directly at a speedlight or studio strobe as it flashes, you’ve probably experienced flash blindness. As the retina returns to normal, so does your sight. However, flash blindness is a temporary condition. Sometimes you just see a very bright spot for a while. There is something called “flash blindness,” when the retina gets too much light and you can’t see clearly. However, photography flashes, at least for the vast majority of people in the vast majority of circumstances, aren’t harmful. Yes, there are ways that extremely bright lights can damage someone’s eyes. National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health. However, the internet being what it is, this story pops up every once and a while. Most maternity wards in hospitals allow, even encourage, flash photography of newborns and a few explicitly state that flash won’t hurt a baby. The fact-checking site tracked the story back through several iterations and questionable sources, yet was unable to find any details about the story (like the names of the parents) nor were there any references to a doctor’s diagnosis. So, what’s the story?īack in 2015 there was a brief furor after the Daily Mail, a UK tabloid with occasional stories of dubious veracity, ran a story from China which claimed that a three-month-old baby had been permanently blinded in one eye by a photographer using flash in a close-up photo. Heck, my optician uses a pretty darn bright flash when taking a photo of my retina. Models and celebrities have been photographed thousands of times with flash and haven’t gone blind. You’d think that if there was a problem, it would be pretty widely known by now. ![]() Have you ever wondered whether the flash from a speedlight or a studio strobe could damage someone’s eyes? After all, they can be mighty bright! On the other hand, photographers have been using flash for decades.
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