I'm a speedlite dummy

Ok call me stupid, but it's taken me 3 months to figure out why my speedlite (flash) wasn't working with my camera and it was really one dumb little mistake the whole time. 

Shortly after I bought my new camera I realized I wanted a remote shutter release so I could take photos without touching the camera.  The opportunity to photograph my own family photo seemed like a good enough reason to buy a wireless shutter release.   After a little research I settled on the Yongnuo RC603C II because they could do double duty as a flash trigger also and they were only $30.  They were fairly easy to figure out and set up and worked pretty well. 

Next I decided to buy a speedlite and went with the Yongnuo YN560 III because it was compatible with the shutter remotes I already had.  When it came I didn't have time to play with it, so it sat in the closet for about a month.  When I finally got around to trying to set it up I found it was a little over my head and the manual was less than helpful.  I tried googling it to no avail.  I posted on various photography forums asking for help, but becasue I wasn't sure what was wrong I wasn't sure how to ask for help and was getting answers that were way over my head.  I considered sending it back and getting a different model, but the amount of time I had to return it had expired, so I was stuck with it.

I would drag it out from time to time and fiddle with it until I got it to flash; take a few photos thinking I had it figured out and put it away only to have it not work the next time I wanted to use it.  I was very frustrated because it never worked consistently.  Then in the middle of a practice shoot the batteries died and I thought just maybe that was the issue.  Still  it wouldn't work.  It seemed to be communicating with the one trigger because it would flash when I pressed the button on the one trigger but not on the other.  So I changed the batteries in the one trigger, but still it wouldn't flash when I pressed the camera shutter button.  I was about ready to take the speedlite and chuck it across the room, but realized that probably wouldn't solve the problem.  So I packed it up and put it away.

Camera with flash trigger in the hotshoe

I woke up this morning determined to figure it out, and if I couldn't do it on my own I was going to take it to the camera store.  I sat down and watched a video on you-tube that I had viewed I don't know how many times before, that explained how to set it up, when I finally had that "Ah ha" moment.  It was something so simple that I feel kind of dumb admitting it.

This whole time I had been setting my triggers up as an off camera shutter release.  But for the speedlite to receive the signal from the camera, the trigger needs to be in the camera's hotshoe.  How I over looked this one little thing and it's taken me 3 months to figure out,  I don't know.  I thought I was fairly tech savvy, but I guess somethings you just have to learn the hard way.