Shaping Light With Profoto

Tonight there will be a wonderful exposition of light shaping with the Profoto studio and field flash system - lots of their distinctive accessories to illuminate studio models and products. The staff here had a chance to see this yesterday and it was rather eye-opening.

There are a lot of things that you miss when you just stack the shelves here - the peculiar and specific construction of the Profoto reflectors was one that escaped me. Oh, I knew that you could slide the reflectors fore and aft on the studio heads to narrow or widen the beam of light, but I had not realised that a great deal more was happening inside those reflectors because of the surfaces of the items.

Some of the surfaces were faceted and highly polished - and the light shot out with great intensity. Some were dulled with an aluminium coating and wrinkled rather like a paint finish - in these cases the light was very much softer and wider.

In all cases there was a close correlation between the surface and the final shadow intensity on the subject - and behind the subject.

And this was just with bowl-shaped reflectors - add on all the effects from umbrellas, softboxes and softlight reflectors, and you would be amazed at the variety of illumination you have at hand.

Now, you should ring through to the shop if you haven't done so already if you'd like to see the show tonight. It will be at the Terrace Studios in East Perth and I believe it commences about 6:00 PM - runs through to about 8:00.

You won't be bored.