Profoto Assistant Los Angeles Event
So the company that manufactures the lighting kits I use- Profoto- had an event at Smashbox Studios in Hollywood (AMAZING facility by the way). They were debuting their new Pro 8 Air kits. Without getting too technical, this lighting pack is faster, more powerful and provides greater flexibility than pretty much anything else out there. This is essentially a contest to win $10,000 in Profoto Gear- as long as you can take a photo that demonstrates the 1/10,000th of a second flash duration. Yes, I said fast- fast enough to stop Mindy mid-air. By the way- she is a 5-time Extreme Martial Arts Champion- now retired. More on that later…
I had the chance to put the AIR adapter onto my camera and instantly be able to control, modify and tweak one of 4 Pro 8 Air kits around the studio. They had two strip lights and one of the new umbrellas for us to use at one station and a beauty dish and 25º grid at another. So basically around $150,000 in lights at my disposal.
In my typical fashion, I sat back, watched what everyone was doing and then went COMPLETELY the opposite direction. I can appreciate even, soft white lighting, but I prefer the dramatic. I maneuvered the strip lights vertically and behind the models to act as a rim light. Here are the results:
Mindy 1
Mindy 2
Mindy 3
Mindy 4
Mindy 5
Fashion 1
Fashion 2
Fashion 3
Fashion 4
I am pretty stoked with the way the images came out- especially considering I was fighting with 40+ other photographers for the time with 3 different models and the lights. Met a lot of great people including Crystal Maria- the makeup artist for the event and Mark Rezzonico- the Vice President of the MAC Product Group (Profoto’s parent company). The best image of the day was Mark with his new Nikon point and shoot with the AIR adapter on top:
Mark Rezzonico- Big AIR, Small Cam
More images to come when I get caught up with everything… Til next time…
EDIT- Found a photo of me on the ProfotoUSA Flickr account showing the model what she looked like on the camera:
And me shooting Mindy:
Me n Mindy
April 27th, 2009 at 4:55 PM
ahhh im behind on checking your blog, but glad to see these photos up and around! good times
im sure our paths will cross soon.
May 12th, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Looks Good!! Great job.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:28 PM
[...] couple of months ago I went to an event where I got to demo the new Pro8 Air generator. I pitched the VP of the MAC Group (Profoto’s [...]
July 13th, 2009 at 5:32 AM
[...] We first met DC back in March at our Profoto Assistant Event at Smashbox in LA. He waited patiently for everyone to finish shooting with the lights, and then politely asked if he could move them around to his taste and took some real stunning images. [...]