Getting It to Gel - The Strobist's Guide To Colour

I cannot deny that I like certain things - Manhattan cocktails, pretty girls, hot rods, and colourful pictures. Not for me the desaturated masterwork images with every tone filtered through an old teabag - while I can still see I want to see colour.

One exception - I like to see monochrome images made with Woodburytype toning. The rich brown is much preferable to weak sepia.

But back to colour, and particularly colour in the. If you are a strobist - a person who strives to use small portable flashes to make studio-quality images out in the wider world - you undoubtedly knwo about the various wireless control systems - they let you use one or more speed lights off camera with a varying level of control between the lights. In my case I use the Nikon D300 cameras and they can control Nikon's Sb 600, 700, and 910 flashes very well.

My new passion, and big thrill, is to use these flashes  with gel modification. I selected the Honl range of gels from our shop and equipped my fill and hair light with them by means of the Honl speed strap. Much less fuss than sticky tabs or clamps, it comprises a wool band that wraps around the head of the flash, and onto which the gels can stick by velcro.

I invested in three packets - a sampler that gave me basic colour correction CTO and CTB gels as well as clear primaries, a selection that was referred to as "Autumn" and one with the title "Hollywood" As you can imagine the "Autumn" has warm colours - the "Hollywood " features hot pinks and purples. You get 5 different shades in each packet and two filters of each shade - ten in all.

I also indulged in a Honl filter wrap case - and this is a wonderful way of carrying 30 filters in safety.

The first results  highlight a Khaleegi troupe of dancers - wild colour to start with on the costumes set into the pastel of the gels - these are firing into a white muslin drop.

The second is a darker evocation for an upcoming WAMED dance - here the fill and hair were gelled with a blue-green but the main was plain to bring out skin tone. A little more tone was rolled in with an Alien Skin plugin filter.

The Honls are not unique but they are certainly well worked-out and I can recommend them to anyone out shooting.