Photography News Issue 67

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Photography News | Issue 67 | photographynews.co.uk

Natural portraits

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Another set-up from the Sisters of Nature series required some traditional head and shoulders framing. Hoang wanted to capture some close-up and intimate portraits with an effortless but powerful feel to them. He says that these portraits “are some of my favourite shots to date, so simple yet powerful”. He adds: “I used a beauty dish from the light and pulled the scrim close from the right. But rather than bounce light off the wall, I used two silver umbrellas to bounce back light through the scrim instead, which added that crispness.”

Profoto B1X

Specs

Power 500watts across 9 f/stops Recycle time 0.1-1.9sec Modelling light

California Dreaming

“ This editorial was titled ‘California Dreaming’,” says Hoang, “ but we didn’t have the budget to fly the whole team out to the States!” The alternative was to shoot on a clear day in the south of England and they chose the Portishead Lido. “ The sharpness of the light, combined with the strength of the subtle posing, styling and colour palette all came together. People who view the image still can’t believe it’s in the UK, so we achieved what we set out to do,” says Hoang. “ The sun was our key light and I used a Profoto B1 with OCF octa box as the fill light, which was handheld by my assistant. The sun provided that hard light and we balanced it with a soft Profoto light shaping tool. The flash was set to a lower power setting so that it complemented the sun, but didn’t overpower it. Getting the balance right, especially on location, was important, but was tricky as it was a less controlled environment than a studio. To help, I made sure the subject knew where the light was coming from so they avoided blocking it while posing. Having a wide range of light shaping tools – like those Profoto offers – is vital.”

24watt LED (Output equivalent to 130watt Halogen), dimmable 100-5% Wireless Yes, up to 300m HSS/TTL Yes, up to 100m Measurements (WxLxH) 14x31x21cm Weight (inc batteries) 3kg Contact profoto.com

If you need the ultimate in power and performance on location, the Profoto B1X is the light for you. A battery-powered monolight with a 500 watt output – that’s 10 times higher than the average speedlight – but finely controllable over 1/10ths of a stop. The B1X also has super-fast recycle times, as fast as 1.9secs at full power. And as a location light, its big battery will provide well over 300 full-power flashes and many thousands at lower settings. Its wireless Air TTL and 1/8000sec High Speed Sync options alsomake the Profoto B1X an ideal location partner. This means you can fire the

light in challenging light and with precise control at up to 300m away. Not only that, you can fire up to 20 flashes per second, and with flash durations of as little as 1/19,000sec in its Freeze mode, you can look forward to razor-sharp action shots. Superb control also comes from the Profoto B1X’s dedicated systemof lightweight OCF light shaping tools, which are designed to be mobile and easy to use, fitting right in with its adventurous outlook. And last but by nomeans least, there’s a strong, dimmable LEDmodelling light, whichmakes it very easy to visualise lighting effects.