I recently obtained a Bowens Travelpak, which is a compact battery unit that allows you to drive two Bowens Gemini flash heads away from a mains power supply. Bowens’s Gemini range have really stolen a march on other brands by designing-in battery savviness right from the word go. Before it was a question of using […]
Correcting nasty colour with photographic gels
Even if using a one flash light set-up you often have two sources available – your flash light and any ambient light. If the ambient light is based on daylight – ie. you’re outside or working with window light, no problem. Flash is designed to be colour matched to daylight so the two meld well.
Lastolite Ezybox and clones
One of the biggest trends in photography over the last few years has been the rediscovery of flash photography. While Nikon and Canon have had exotic wireless flash systems for a number of years that enable the use of flashgun ‘off-camera’ it’s only the writings of Americans Joe McNally and ‘Strobist’ David Hobby that many […]
Get your ‘Hi-Key’ Portraits taken at home
Family portrait sessions needn’t be a hassle when you can set up a professional-grade studio right there in a client’s living room. High-key, or ‘hi-key’ is something that many clients are looking for and has now become the dominant ‘look’ in high street portrait studios like Venture.
Living-room studio pin-ups with Ally katte
I completed a shoot with up-and-coming Bristol Burlesque artist Ally Katte recently. The idea was to create some vaguely Alberto Vargas-like pin-up images. While the living room in my rented flat is larger than many a crummy buy-to-let shoebox, it’s still not an ideal space in which to work but with some canny lighting arrangements […]
B is for Bowens
For the last four years or so I’ve been a user of Bowens Gemini lighting. Bowens was one of the first companies in the world to really start standardising what we now recognise as off-the-shelf studio lighting. Although a global brand, Bowens has been for decades ubiquitous in the UK, used by top photographers but […]