Beauty Is As Beauty Does

I thought I was committing the height of folly a decade ago when I bought a 44 cm Softlight Beauty dish for my Elinchrom studio flash heads. After all, I had three lights with 18 cm reflectors and umbrellas and a soft box and a snoot. I mean how many more looks could there possibly be in the studio...?

So when was I going to use this thing?

Luck would have it that I had a job at a costume society dinner that week. I was given a small stage area to put up a backdrop ( faithful old three-part framework and mottled muslin...the muslin gets more mottled every year. At the end of the decade I am going to boil it for soup...) and one power point. As I was to be within a metre and a half of the subjects i decided on one 250 w/s head and the beauty dish. Best decision I ever made.

The curve of the dish that close to the subjects allowed for a slightly specular light that dropped down from the crown of the head but still curved into the eye socket and under the nose. It was almost like having a main and fill in one piece. With only a very small amount of light shifting I was able to light all the different people in their different costumes and it was one of the most successful sessions for that club.

Last night I decided to put into operation a lighting scheme that Matt Koskowski recommends in one of his Photoshop books; two medium strip lights at the 10:00 and 2:00 position in relation to the subject  and a beauty dish at 6:00. He shows in his book that it will facilitate easy selection of the subject for subsequent compositing. It seemed to be contrary to what I had done before but what the heck...

The heck. It works. The heading image is one of he first off the screen, and as it was done on a double martini and late at night, it could stand a bit more care, but it is a lot easier than any thing else. Of course it helps when the subject has definite curves and a glorious costume and is heavily armed, but then doesn't that describe a lot of dates...

SALES POINT. Beauty dishes work - they make people look like cover girls - even when they are little wizened gnomes or large hairy madmen. I mention these because I shall be showing some of the other images from the shoot in future posts. In the meantime consider one for your Elinchrom or Profoto lights as the ideal solution for a one-light setup.