dc chavez – the BLOG

So after some late nights of working, the first blog post for Profoto is done. This first post focused specifically on the the old vs new zoom reflector and the Softlight reflector.

This post is a very controlled side by side comparison of the lights and light shaping tools.

Here is the link: http://blog.profoto-usa.com/?p=290

Thanks to everyone at Profoto, Samys Camera, Southbay Studios and Stephanie Sawyer for making this possible.

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