One Light Wonderland

Lately out of curiosity (or sheer laziness) I have been looking into portraiture in which only one lighting source (besides ambient) was used. Over and over again I see people getting great results from a single light source- a beauty dish. I have not used a beauty dish before. That is until today.

My girlfriend and I went out today for a shoot. Tip: If you are shooting with a model and need wardrobe ideas, pilfer a Halloween specialty store post Halloween. We picked up this and many other sets for 25-50% of their original price. Bonus: They double as Halloween costumes!

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Canon T1i w/ Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6

1/100 sec, f/8, ISO100, 10mm

Yongnuo 460II- 1/16

Today I finished my DIY beauty dish. While there are many different DIY beauty dish tutorials online I decided to create my own. I will deconstruct my beauty dish and try to get a "how-to" post done up as soon as I can. However, the results were really great and got me really excited!

For those who are wondering, a beauty dish is a light modifier which gives off light which is somewhere between that of a bare flash (no modifier) and a softbox in softness. It is essentially a parabolic (or near parabolic) dish with a hole in the back for the flash to enter. A reflector in the middle that reflects the light from the flash outwards to the dish which illuminates the subject. In short: more harsh light than a softbox, softer than a bare flash which wraps the subject well and gives a nice contrasty, dramatic look.