One light and one modifier is all I need!
One light, One modifier, that's all I need, or is it?
I've been reading all of your comments lately on my Youtube Channel and I discovered you guys never click on the blog links, or go see my past videos. A lot of the questions you ask me have already been answered... but I understand, past 6 months for me the video is not worth watching.
So here is the thing, I discovered recently that 75% of my work if not more were made with only one light and one modifier only... Can you guess which one?
Before you leave me a hate comment below, because I own Broncolor lights, I was working the same way 6 years ago with only a Speedlite and silver umbrella. The main differences are the consistency of the quality of light I get now, the battery life, the power and the fast recycle time.
Shooting against the sun at noon with a Speedlite is not easy and a silver umbrella is useless if you are shooting on a windy day. Trust me I broke a few of them and it wasn't in a tornado.
I needed something small that would give me pleasing results, and this is where the Beautybox 65 comes in. It's basically my default light and some of you have noticed that I often use the grid on it to narrow the beam and focus my light and reduce the spread.
It acts as a beauty dish, it gives a punchy contrasted look to my images... everything I love!
And what's cool about this is that it all fits in a bag, one Siros L a camera, and 2 lenses a few batteries inside a big bag, but still a single bag!
The Beautybox 65 can be used with any Speedlite on the market with the correct adapter, and other brands also propose their collapsible beauty dish.
Then, it's up to you to be creative. All the following shots were made with these tools. And my go-to light placement is easy, I always start with my strobe camera right or left, slightly above my model at a 45 or 90 degrees angle.
Marina Kudryashova (Bordeaux - France) 5D mark III + Broncolor Siros L 800ws 1/200sec f5 ISO 125 at 24mm
Here I wanted a bright even light... the sun hits camera left, my light is camera right, If I did this shot again today, I would go for that double shadow on the floor.
Marina Kudryashova (Bordeaux - France) 5D mark III + Broncolor Siros L 800ws 1/200sec f5.6 ISO 125 at 44mm
Marina Kudryashova
Palais de Justice (Bordeaux - France) 5D mark III + Broncolor Siros L 800ws 1/500sec f8 ISO 160 at 16mm
A few months back I released a behind-the-scenes video with another dancer in the same location with an identical setup.
The Benefits of Shooting Tethered: Dance photoshoot behind the scenes
Alex Blondeau
Palais de la bourse (Bordeaux - France) 5D mark III + Broncolor Siros L 800ws 1/200sec f