A Photographers thoughts on Horst: Photographer of Style

Horst: Photographer of Style Exhibition in London's V&A museum.

As the title suggests this article is a look at famous photographer Horst's V&A exhibition from a photographers point of view. The V&A museum in London is famous for it's vast fashion collections over the years so there are many great reviews of Horst's exhibition out there with this fashion and art history view in mind.

These reviews are exceptional in their own right but I wanted to dig a little deeper for the photographer who might want to see and know more about the exhibition and purely focus on looking at it from a photographic point of view.

Horst enjoying the obligatory cigarette at work in his studio.

Image: Roy Steven/Time & Life Pictures

The History of Horst (1906-99)

Horst was born in Germany in 1906 and originally studied design and architecture but took his first photographs for Vogue in Paris in 1931 and shot some of his last work for them some 60 years after that in Manhattan New York. Over that period Horst amassed over 90 Vogue front covers, something that I very much doubt will ever be matched or beaten again. It could well be argued that Horst actually is the history of fashion photography with his work being among the first to be published when magazines were making the transition from illustration to photographs all the way up to nearly the present day. In fact it wasn't until 1992 that Horst finally had to put down his camera due to failing eyesight. During that vast career Horst had photographed the great models of the time including Coco Chanel and Schiaparelli in the early 1930's, collaborated with Salvador Dali later on that decade and then went on to photograph the great actors and actresses of Hollywood in the 1940's like Marlene Dietrich. After this Horst went on to explore other photographic avenues with extensive travel photography and abstract nature photography before photographing the homes and gardens of the rich and famous.

It's clear to all that Horst was a serious influence on the fashion of the time and still continues to influence it now but I want to take a look behind the fashion and the Chanel's and Dali's and look at his photographic process.

Helen Bennett by Horst 1935. Horst had a fascination of playing with light and this sort of experimentation in his early career was key to his later style.

Horst and Developing a Photographic Style

Although I am certainly no famous fashion photographer myself I do pride myself on constructing an image around the human form and the fashion that adorns it. As such I did find this extensive retrospective of Horst's photography incredibly interesting but that it not to say that it excludes photographers from other genres. Horst's photographic journey and process is by no means unique and I'm sure those of us that have been shooting for a while may well see similarities with our own personal trial and error lighting styles with Horst's own exploration of light.

The exhibition starts very early on in Horst's career but even still there are only one or two shots of his extremely first works. Whether by choice or by the sheer fact that no actual photographs remain from this period the work shown is surprising. I say this because it is not typical Horst, the lighting is very clean, soft and has little in the way of shadows. In fact the lighting is technically excellent even then but the images certainly have no soul or personality and it was only after this and after he started working for Vogue in the 30's that he developed his individual photographic style.

Coco Chanel photographed by Horst in 1937. Clearly this was during his 'darker' style and during the same year Vogue lectured him on not having enough light in his shots.

During those formative years Vogue's publisher Conde Montrose Nast invested large sums of money into improving the quality of image reproduction so he insisted that Vogue photographers work on large format 10x8 glass plate cameras. It was during this time that Horst got to grips with this technique and remember we are referring to the 1930's where only hot lights were used, no light meter and no Polaroids existed. Poses often had to be held for several seconds and even then Horst was famously known for taking up to two days to set up his lights for a single shot. Photography back then was as much a skill as it was a science as it was an art form, and every single image was meticulously pre-visulaised.

In the exhibition we see Horst's sketch books and his drawings of how he wants the shots to look beforehand, this is a rare insight into the process a photographer would have to go through before even taking the shot. As well as sketches the exhibition also showcases some of Horst's contact sheets (single prints that show every single frame taken on a complete roll in a 1 to 1 scale), these are particularly interesting as it shows his workflow of adjusting the set, props and and the poses throughout a shoot. Remember he is not able to review each shot as he's taking them so these adjustments are the result of an organic process without prejudice from the previous frame.

In the centre of one of the exhibition rooms there stands a case of about 10 prints from the 1930's of a single model. The model states that Horst discovered her and made her the model she later became and the images displayed here in this case are the first shots they took together. This series of shots is what we would probably refer to today as a 'test' or collaboration and each of the shots are dated. Each shot has a different date, some are in a run of consecutive days but the models portfolio of shots clearly took several weeks to compile. This was a time when each and every shot was meticulously crafted to match not only the set and the lighting but the model and fashion as well.

Earlier I mentioned that Horst really started to develop his style in the 1930's at Vogue and this is the time when you could really see him playing and experimenting with the lights. I will be honest and say that some of the lighting is a little odd during this period and I think to begin with he may have focused too heavily on lighting the gowns and left some slightly odd lighting on the models faces but after a while he soon took great pride in very dramatic lighting and often plunging the scene into heavy shadow to really exaggerate the contrast and drama in a shot. In fact this drama became so apparent in his work that chief editor of Vogue in 1937 drafted a memo:

Horst's style a the time was certainly dramatic but it wasn't making him any friends at the Vogue office as Chief Editor at the time lectured him on the 'lack of light in his photography'.

"I have been lecturing Horst about the lack of light in his photography. We have simply got to overcome this desire on the part of our photographers to shroud everything in deepest mystery".

I think every great photographer has come up against this backlash when you try to initiate anything different but it is usually a sure sign that you are going in the right direction.

Horst further refined his style and its clear to see his background in sculpture taking an influence. Greek statues were always designed and created under direct sunlight and the poses and forms were always born with this in mind. Although Horst took influence in painstakingly trying to make his models skin look like marble with his lighting he found that the usual direct overhead light was too strong and accentuated lines and wrinkles. As a result you see him play with the light in a way to reduce this and end up with some very dramatic imagery especially at the time but that he is still famous for now .

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Many of Horst's images would undergo extensive retouching. Here we can see the notes for the retoucher to go over. From accentuating eyelashes, adding makeup and lightening lines and wrinkles everything was made perfect before it made it to the pages of Vogue.

Image: Conde Nast/Horst Estate

Correlations to then and now in the Photographic Industry

The exhibition also held a few surprises to me that perhaps only a photographer would find interesting. Sure there are some of his original cameras there like the big 10x8 and his old Rolleiflex medium format camera but there were also some behind the scenes videos and most intriguingly several before and after retouching photographs. I was aware that retouching in some form or another had been going on since photography began, even I had to get the mini paint brushes and dyes out on a few prints back in the day to remove dust but I was still surprised at the 'cosmetic' retouching undertaken in Vogue in the 1930's. In fact even before the shot had been taken models were apparently physically cutting their boobs and hips to gain the 'perfect' shape but once the shot had been taken dramatic amounts of retouching was then applied as well.

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This is one of Horst's most famous images, the Mainbocher Corset shot 1939. On the left we have the original and on the right we have the retouched version. In the exhibition we can clearly see more detail and notes on the process but the work was so well done that even upon closer inspection you couldn't tell without seeing a side by side comparison.

Image: Horst

There wasn't a huge amount of detail on the process but as far as I could tell actual paint was applied to the prints before finally being ready for publication. Simone Eyrard the skilful retoucher of the Paris studio would do the the usual removal of wires and cables, marks on the floor and even an entire light stand apparently but there were also detailed retouching notes on what we would refer to now as 'liquifying'. This was done on everything from toes to hips, arms and anything that wasn't inline with the idealised vision of beauty at the time. It just goes to show that retouching is fast approaching its 100th birthday and is hardly a new phenomenon in the fashion and beauty industry.

Lastly I'd just to highlight another 'new' issue that we feel we are under threat by as photographers that has in actuality been going on for longer that we'd like to imagine. This issue is what I refer to as the 'throw away image' the incessant tidal wave of photographs from an Instagram generation that we are subjected to each and every day. In fact we aren't the only people to have felt this way when a Swedish fashion model spoke about Horst's work and was quoted as saying:

"I feel such soothing blessings by your beautiful work - even more so today when we live in a sea of flickering snapshots, bombarded from everywhere"

Lisa Fonssagrives 1976

I very much doubt Ms Fonssagrives would be very impressed about the 350 million photos uploaded to Facebook alone each and every day.

Horst in colour. In this room the V&A showcase all of Horst's Vogue covers plus some his huge full colour prints from the time.

Parts of the Horst Exhibition I Haven't Covered 

As I mentioned at the start the point of this article was to look at the Horst Exhibition through a photographers eye but all I have really spoken about is his early career which spanned his first years at Vogue where he really adapted and grew his style. What I haven't touched on is his phenomenal colour work and the fantastic collection of massive colour prints that really have to be seen to be believed. Remember lots of these prints are from 10x8 plates so the quality is still unheard of even today with the most modern digital cameras (a theoretical 10x8 sensor could conceivably produce a 500 megapixel image, even if the lens would fail you long before that). They also have all of Horst's Vogue front covers on display and many other rooms of prints of nudes, interiors and abstract nature shots, in fact the exhibition holds an impressive 270 of his images so its certainly well worth a visit in my opinion.

The Horst: Photographer of Style Exhibition is running from the 6th September to 14th January 2015 at the V&A museum in London. Tickets cost us £14 on the door and it took us around 2 hours to see everything at leisure.

If you've already been or plan to go feel free to let me know your thoughts and ideas on Horst's work.

Making a Negative from your Instant Polaroid Prints

Here is a scan of a reclaimed negative using the simple technique outlined below.

Although Polaroid as a company is no longer manufacturing their film, their ethos and idea behind instant imaging is still very much alive and kicking.

Companies like Impossible Project and Fuji Film are both making the instant film and in recent times the whole analogue market has seen a big resurgence.

The purpose for this article is to help explain some of the possibilities beyond just the instant print itself and in the following content I will go over the simple process involved in extracting a scannable or printable negative from Fuji's FP 100c peel apart instant film.

With peel apart instant film you normally just throw away the backing that is covered in chemicals. For this negative reclamation technique we will actually be keeping this part.

1. Firstly you will obviously need to take your shot as you normally would. After the allotted time has passed proceed to peel apart the film from its backing. Be sure to place your print somewhere safe as it's still wet from the processing chemicals. You should also place the piece that you would normally throw away somewhere safe as this section is what we extract the negative from. It is worth noting that this piece is extremely wet at this stage so be mindful not to place it chemical side down on anything porous, doing so may result in damaging the surface.

Here is the result of an Fuji 100c image negative being scanned but only after I had reclaimed the negative a year or so after it was originally shot. You can see here there are some major colour shifts but it can produce some cool results.

One question I have been asked several times is how long after the picture has been taken can you, or should you, extract the negative? As far as I am aware there is no minimum time and you can extract the negative straight after taking the picture if you so wish. If however you wanted to extract a negative from an older chemical sheet then expect there to be some slight degradation over time. I have gotten great negatives from them after a few weeks and i have even made negatives from the chemical sheets a year after taking the original shot. You may even find that you like the effect produced from leaving it for an extended period.

Peel apart the print from the backing ensuring you remove as much border as possible.

2. Now that we have our non-print section we should go about peeling apart all of the borders and additional materials. You should end up just a single piece of very dark material. For the process I use it is important to ensure all the borders are removed as I stick this to a piece of glass so a clean bond is essential.

Stick the backing to the glass with water and ensue there are no bubbles or air pockets.

3. Take a sheet of glass, any glass will do and anything from frame glass or even a mirror will be fine. The reason for this is to create a very clean bond to the chosen surface and glass ensures this. Place your future negative face down (the previously sticky side) with the black side facing up onto the glass. I usually wet the glass a little first to ensure a clean bond. Then I gently wash the whole thing in water to ensure the sheet is sealed all the way around.

In this image you can see the very dark black border all the way around. This is the result of the original not being properly sealed to the glass and the bleach has been able to get in and  around the edges and destroy the image at its borders.

Ensure you are using neat bleach and not other cleaning gels as this process will only work with pure bleach.

4. Once thats sealed to the glass its time to add the active ingredient that actually removes the backing and exposes the negative. You'll be pleased to hear that ingredient is simply household bleach and is readily available anywhere. One thing to note is that it does need to be regular bleach, the cheap stuff. The similar gels and other potent cleaning products don't actually have the active ingredient of bleach so they will not work.

After you have coated the back of the sheet with bleach, leave it for around five minutes.

5. Liberally spread the bleach over the back of the sheet making sure it is entirely covered. Once it has been applied you just need to leave it for several minutes to do its thing. Depending on ambient temperature around five minutes should be about fine.

Whenever using strong thick bleach like this, care should always be taken and make sure you are wearing gloves if you have sensitive skin.

6. When you return you should now see that the bleach is doing its job and black gunk should now forming on top of the sheet. Carefully at first, proceed to remove this gunk from the negative. You can wear gloves for this part as bleach is a strong chemical that some people can find very irritating to their skin. Continue removing the gunk until you can feel that it has been entirely removed from the negative. Below the surface should be very smooth and any remaining black gunk should be easy to feel. Add a little water to wash away some of it to check and then continue until you are certain it has all been removed.

Sometimes the colours produced by this technique are a bit too far gone. This was an old shot that I reclaimed the negative from, as a result the colour degradation was too intense so I decided to convert it black and white in post production.

This negative reclamation can be a tricky technique to get right first time so don't be too disheartened if you don't get it perfect straight away. Hopefully though this article will help iron out a lot of the trial and error and produce results right from the start.

Once you have removed all the gunk from one side, flip it over but be sure to only use warm water on this more delicate side.

7. Once you're happy there is no more black emulsion on that side it is now time to remove the negative from the glass and flip it over. We now have to remove the gunk from this side as well. This is the side that the original print was attached to the chemicals are more exposed on this side, as result we do NOT need to use bleach on this side. Doing so would be extremely damaging and would strip the image from the negative. On this side all we need is warm water and some gentle rubbing.  After a little bit you should feel that it has all been removed and any little pieces of border left over from before should also be removed.

8. That's it, you're done. I would recommend leaving this negative to dry naturally at room temperature and I would also recommend drying them standing up and leaning against something. If you lay them flat you will run the risk of the negative sticking to the surface but you will also create drying marks and streaks.

9. Once they are dried you can now scan them in and add additional effects or just go with some of the more natural effects this process produces. Have fun.

Here is the final result scanned in.

Included below is a video of the whole process from start to finish.

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If you're looking for further reading on the type of camera that takes these instant shots then take a look at my article on how to mod your vintage polaroid land camera

Want instant images of today over the retro ones? Check out my article on tethering your camera without the tether.

Shooting the Dan Le Sac Album Cover

It was little while ago now that I shot the cover for Dan Le Sac's first solo album but I thought I'd share some of the tips and techniques of the process that went into creating it.

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This is the original shot that was sent to the record label. It was this shot that was later cropped to appear on the front cover we know now. -CLICK TO ENLARGE-

This shoot was a little different from my normal foray into 6 lights and crazy coloured gels but that it is not to say that this setup was any less technically demanding. On first impressions the shot may look simple enough but there are in fact a few technical things specific to light that had to be contended with to make this look possible.

Dan wanted a very close headshot for the cover and remembering that album covers are square probably means no shoulders either, this was going to be a really tight crop on the face. To help add drama to this closeup shot he was employing the amazing talent and skills of special effects makeup artist Simone McDonald to create a weather-beaten antihero look. This look would certainly attract the viewers attention so now all I had to do was light it.

Now that we know a little about the brief and what the client is after we can start to plan the shot. It's worth noting that on these briefs where you get somewhat strict guidelines, it can seem confining at first, especially for those of us who shoot fashion and other portrait style shots because now you have a more regimented final image in mind. The trick to achieving this is to interpret the brief as accurately as possible by trying to help the client get the image they have in their minds-eye out onto paper. This is a lot harder than it first seems and getting as much reference material and example images of ideas off to them before you start shooting will not only cover yourself but also alleviate any concerns your client may have that the shoot is going in the wrong direction. For this particular shoot I even did lighting tests prior to shot day and sent them to the client, this pretty much guarantees the whole team is on the same page when you start to shoot.

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Dan le Sac having the first base coat of crud applied before shooting.

Pre Planning the Shot

I knew I wanted the shot very close and tight and I knew that I wanted to make the lighting as interesting as possible but also complement the makeup and overall feel of the shot. It would be no good to photograph him looking like he's just done a term of mining on Mars and then stick him outside at noon at f1.8. That 'throw-away' style of lighting just isn't going to cut it for an attention grabbing album cover, it has to actually be interesting and fit the mood the artist (Dan le sac) is trying to portray.

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This diagram isn't to scale but it illustrates nicely how light drop off is more dramatic the closer the subject is to the light. The top diagram shows how quickly the exposure is reduced from the front of the face to the back of the head whereas conversely the bottom diagram the light source is significantly further away, the light drop is hardly noticeable. -CLICK TO ENLARGE-

After a little brainstorming I ended up with a few key characteristics that I wanted the lighting to have. Predominantly though I wanted it to just light the front of the face with minimal wraparound and I wanted as little distractions from the makeup as possible. To do this would mean employing a little knowledge of the inverse square law theory. Now before you all just skip ahead to the pretty pictures just bear with me. For photographers the theory means this; if the model is standing 1 metre from the light and has a light meter reading of f16 she will have a light meter reading of f8 at 2 metres from the light. In short, you double your distance from the light source you quarter the light that falls on the model. From f16 to f11 is half the light and from f11 to f8 is half the light again resulting in a quarter of the light over all. If you're still with me then lets look at why this is useful knowledge when shooting and how I applied it to achieve this shot.

If Dan was 2 metres from my light source and the front of his face read f8 the back and edges of his head would be receiving a similar amount of light and it wouldn't be a very dramatic drop-off of light. If he was a lot closer to the light source however then the drop off of light would be noticeably more significant. Take a look at the diagram I have included here with this article to better understand what I mean.

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The reason why Dan looks so happy is because the makeup artist Simone has just poured hot treacle over his head!

So brining the light extremely close to Dan was the first step in achieving the look I was after, but in doing so I had created another problem for myself. The problem was that there is another little rule in photographic lighting that says 'the larger the light source in relation to the subject the softer the light'. I had just brought my light source less than 50cm away from my subjects face to create dramatic fall-off of light but that effectively meant that I now had a huge light source in relation to my subject. I had to find a way to control the light in a way to maintain that drop off as well as create dramatic lighting. I introduce to you a photographers best friend; the humble black velvet. I use black velvet all the time to flag light but I had to bring in something special for this shoot so I crafted 4 A3 boards and covered them in black velvet. These four black boards would then surround Dans head, one on either side and one on top and one below.

Yes that really is as weird as it sounds but the theory was a strong one and it worked brilliantly. Essentially the four black velvet boards are eliminating any stray light whatsoever from bouncing around and filling in any shadows. What you end up with is a very quick fall-off of light and very deep shadows, perfect for the look I was after….even if the set did look a little ridiculous. I attached the A3 boards to clips and then supported them with two light stands.

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Here Simone McDonald the makeup artist is applying the finishing touches but you can see how close the black velvet boards are to Dan here. When Simone has retreated from shot I will apply the last of the four velvet boards below Dans chin just out of shot.

It's also worth mentioning that you can see the two strip boxes in shot here as well, they are just clipping the frame on the left and the right. Again these are not only very close to Dan but also very close together, giving me just enough room to shoot between them. -CLICK TO ENLARGE-

Now all that is in place I had to organise how I was going to actually get my camera in these tight quarters to shoot. The key light was going to be very close for maximum drop-off and I knew the shot was going to be head-on with the subject staring straight into the lens, because of this I didn't want the light off centre or too far above. At this close distance if the light was almost directly above the shadows would not have been very flattering. One immediate option would have been to turn to the ring-flash, the ring-flash creates a very even light, I could get extremely close with it and it wasn't going to get in my way as I could literally shoot through it. I love the ring-flash but it was not going to be appropriate for this shot, the ring-flash is very bright, brash and bold and gets used with music in videos of similar a nature. Dan was going to be covered in rubble and grime and that glamour fashion lighting would definitely not have suited the shot.

Instead I went for the next best thing which was to shoot between two very close strip softboxes. I had the two Bowens Lumiair 100 strips with the egg crate/grids on the front. Having these grids on the front of the softboxes was essential as I needed to maintain maximum control of the light and reduce any fall-off, the grids help to do this perfectly.

The whole set was shot against a black backdrop to eliminate any more light bouncing but it was now too dark and I couldn't distinguish where Dan's head ended and where the background began. To remedy this I just popped another strobe back there with a grid on it to just pick up the edges of hair and give him shape.

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Here is how the final album cover looked. The record label decided to crop the final image for even more dramatic effect. I think this looks great but I also loved how the original un-cropped shots looked.

Dan loved the resulting images and were exactly what he was looking for. He chose a few to be retouched and they were then sent to his record label for final approval. As you can see in the final album cover here the record label did in fact heavily crop the original shot even further to add even more impact for viewers. I understand why they did it and I think it looks really cool but I definitely love how the original shots look. Here they are below un-cropped and showcased all together for the first time.

Click on the images below to enlarge them...

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Equipment Used

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This is the lighting diagram for the shoot. In this diagram the boards for the top and bottom have been omitted for clarification but they were fundamental for ensuring minimal light spill all the way around the subject. -CLICK TO ENLARGE-

3 x 500w Bowens Gemini Strobes

1 x 60 degree Reflector with 1/4" Grid (backlight)

2 x 100 Lumiair Strip boxes with grids

4 x A3 Black Velvet Boards

1 Black Backdrop

Let me know what you think or if you've used a similar technique. I think this idea of heavy flagging is so often overlooked but something so simple and inexpensive like homemade black boards can have a dramatic effect that will not be realised until you try it yourself. It really is crazy how much stray light bounces around on set and this technique was perfect for creating the drop-off of light I was after.

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For more reading on the drop-off of light and edge transitions of shadows take a look at my article on 'Photographers create 2D representations of 3D objects'

Its not only black boards in the studio that can be incredibly useful but white boards as well. In this article I look at how large white bounce boards can create incredibly flattering portraits 'Bouncing Light'

A little look at my 'Quick Tips' page shows you several more uses for the humble Black Velvet.

Defining Quality of Light in Photography

I will be the first to admit that when it comes to photography, I certainly prefer the 'just get stuck in' approach and getting more of a feel for how the shot is looking over a shot list, lighting ratios and grey card. I am far more likely to set up my lights and fire off a few test shots to see how things are looking rather than planning exactly where and what power each and every light will be before I've even arrived on set.

On this shoot the client wanted to showcase his hairstyles with my distinctive coloured lighting. As usual there was a huge number of lights involved and due to the nature of the shots it would have been almost impossible to define how the final image would look when you have so many variables at work. There are of course a few constants that absolutely must be present in every professionals final images and that is the flawless and flattering look that only the highest quality of light can provide.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Tuliniemi.

This approach may seem reckless but I've earned that right. Not only does it come across as far more relaxed to everybody around you but most importantly it's because I know what I'm looking for. When I say I turn up and appear to effectively 'wing-it' I mean that I merely know what I want to achieve but how I get there may well differ based on the specific variables at play.

I can only afford to work like this because I know how each of my pieces of equipment will act. I know my large softbox will create a softer light than my smaller softbox and I know my silver beauty dish will give a cooler tone than my white one. These aren't just educated guesses or what somebody else has told me or even what I've read online, this knowledge is a product of my personal shooting experience.

A little while ago I was contacted by another photographer who wanted my opinion about some portraits they had taken. The shots looked fine, they were well exposed, the model looked posed in a flattering and comfortable way and all the shots were composed well. In fact all the boxes were ticked for this to be a lovely set of images but one thing stood out to me immediately as being off. The lighting in the shots was not soft but it was still flattering, the thing that stood out to me was the quality of the light on the models skin. The light was speckled with tiny variations of lights and darks and all across the models face you could see highlighted areas as well as shadowy areas. It was almost like a very subtle dappling effect but under the current circumstances it was very distracting and anything but flattering.

After further discussion and delving a little deeper into his setup I found out he was using a speedlight bounced into a silver umbrella, it was this incredibly hard light source being effectively fired into tinfoil that was creating this ugly effect. Why didn't he notice it? I'm sure he did but he might not necessarily know this is 'wrong' or bad until you are shown how good it 'can' look. The £20 bottle of wine tastes amazing until you try the £200 bottle of wine. We have to be shown how good it can look or how good it can taste before we can personally define what quality means to us.

So what defines the quality of light in photography? Firstly lets try to define what quality means. Quality is a fluid term and it can only be defined by comparison. For example the £20 bottle of wine tastes amazing compared to the £2 bottle but the £20 bottle of wine tastes pretty pedestrian once we've tasted the £200 bottle, it's a sliding scale. So although the photographers shots looked great to him they looked pretty scary to me. Why? Well because I know how good they could have looked had the quality of light been improved.

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The image at the top was taken with a speedlight fired into a silver umbrella. The resulting reflection can be seen on this white wall. The distorted shadows and highlights circled above would not cast your model in a very flattering light……literally.

Now that we have tried to define quality lets try to define what quality of light means to us photographers by putting some comparisons onto our sliding scale.

The images displayed here go on to show the results of an experiment I did into how our lighting modifiers and our light sources effect the quality of our light. Firstly I recreated the effect the photographer had sent me; I fired a speedlight into a silver umbrella and then fired my Bowens 500w strobe into the umbrella and compared the two resulting shots. As we can all see, the shot at the top is producing those strange light and dark areas on the wall. This will not look good on a models skin. I say this because in my opinion the more even and clean the spread of light is the higher the quality of light. This speckled lighting effect created from the speedlight is not able to truly represent the blank wall, here it is adding shape through light and dark areas that is not actually there. It should be fairly obvious then that this same effect on skin will give the illusion of shape that is not in fact there resulting in uneven skin texture.

After this little experiment I went on and tried a few more tests with other lighting modifiers that I had. I was aware that a lot of shooters chose to 'upgrade' their speedlights by simply buying an attachment for the speedlight that accepted the s-fit lighting attachments Bowens make. I actually picked one up myself for about £10 for this very article. It's a simple piece of kit, it attaches to the top of a light stand or tripod, you then affix your speedlight and position it to fire through the hoop in front that holds your s-fit modifier. At first this seems like a great idea and for certain modifiers it works fine but for others it can produce some crazy results. Take a look at the resulting images in the test I did.

I think it's important to point out at this stage that I am not hating on the speedlight here and you can make up your own mind from the results shown. Speedlights have their role to play in photography and they are literally invaluable to wedding and paparazzi shooters. They need to be quick on their feet and they need to document whats unfolding in front of them as soon as they see it. They don't have the time to set up the shot and retake it if it doesn't look right. Speedlights are very light and incredibly portable and because of this I would absolutely use them all the time if they could produce the quality of light I require for my shots. Alas I think controlling the light accurately and evenly is outside of their job description. The light is just emanating from too smaller source and the laws of pesky physics is holding them back.

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The little piece of inexpensive kit that allows your speedlights to use all the Bowens S-fit lighting modifiers.

So let's take a closer look at some of the results. To be fair, I was surprised by what I found, sure I knew exactly how the strobe test shots would look, I've been using them for ten years but the speedlight results were certainly not what I expected. Firstly they actually produce quite good results when their light is heavily diffused. The softbox shots look more than acceptable whereas I thought there would be far more of a hotspot present than is apparent from these results. Yes you can see the corners of the softbox going dark and a brighter middle but if you only wanted to use a small softbox like this then it would probably be fine. Secondly though, the speedlights performed worse than I expected with the harder light modifiers like the beauty dishes. In fact I would go as far as to say that the speedlights are literally unusable with them. The original light source of the speedlight is just too small and hard and it just cannot be distributed evenly enough throughout the modifier. The same principle applies to the snoot and honeycomb grids, the light just cannot be softened enough through bouncing the light alone, it really does need a diffusion panel of some kind.

So what does all that mean? It hardly seems fair to test speedlights on modifiers that have not been designed for them. I completely agree and the only reason I even did this test was to experiment with what a lot of photographers already use and try to explain why they are getting the results that they do.

I understand why they use this speedlight to s-fit attachment, you already have your speedlights so rather than go out and buy a whole new lighting system you try and augment what you already have by Frankensteining your current speedlights. We've all done something similar at some point and it's absolutely fine to do so, especially if you only plan to shoot softbox style shots you could probably get away with it. But for those who want to play with other modifiers it can be frustrating to try and achieve the impossible yet still blame yourself for bad and weird looking photos. The moral here is to be realistic with the expectations of your equipment. Do your own tests and experiments on your lights and see if you're happy with the quality of light displayed by your modifiers. If not then don't beat yourself up when you get weird looking lighting effects on your models skin as it really is one of the only times a workman can blame his tools :D

By all means if you've had similar experiences or have found ways to improve the quality of light with your speedlights then please feel free to share them below. It's always good to share your experiences and knowledge.

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For further reading and more comparisons between speedlights and strobes take a look at my article on 'Which is better, Speedlights or Strobes?'

Also you may like to look at the results of some tests on my modifiers in this article on 'Testing your Lighting Attachments for Light Fall-Off'

If you'd like to look at getting started with studio lighting and your speedlights, take a look at this article on 'Start taking Studio Lighting Shots for Under £25'

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:WARNING: Cool stuff that cost money below :D

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Jake Hicks Photography Workshops

If you're interested in learning more about my professional workflow and lighting then why not check out some of my workshops. I run my very popular Gelled Lighting Workshops where I cover everything there is to know about gelled lighting plus I also run a little more advanced days training called my Colour & Exposure Workshop. This workshop is a little more advanced and covers long exposure imagery that mixes ambient lighting and flash photography. On top of that I also run a full days workshop that covers everything I do once I've taken the shots. My Post-Production Workflow Workshop covers everything from import to export in Lightroom and Photoshop. Plus everybody on the day of that course will walk away with an in-depth PDF of everything taught on the day PLUS over 15 of my Photoshop Actions and 30 of my Lightroom presets!

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Jake Hicks Photography Video Tutorial

I have also just released a brand new 22 hour complete Gelled Lighting Tutorial video. I go over everything from studio lighting setups with gels to being on location with gels plus I also go through my complete retouching and post pro workflow. For more details and complete breakdown of everything that's include check out my Coloured Gel Portraits Tutorial

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Jake Hicks Photography Gel Packs

I also offer comprehensive coloured gel packs. These collections of gels are what I use day to day to create some of the most highly saturated colours around. If you're looking at getting into gelled lighting or need to get stronger and richer colours in your coloured gel work why not check out my Jake Hicks Photography Gel Packs

The Bowens Universal Spot Attachment

I have been shooting pretty much exclusively with studio strobes for well over 10 years now; I'd like to think I've had a go with pretty much every lighting attachment out there but last weekend I got the chance to shoot with something new, the Bowens Universal Spot Attachment. The spot attachment has a few unique features but it's ability to “literally” focus the light is the main reason I particularly wanted to try it.

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Bowens Universal Spot Attachment

Focusing the light might not sound ground-breaking at first, but I’m not talking about channelling the light or simply controlling the light – the University Spot Attachment is actually built with a lens on the end that you can move in and out to focus the flash. So what does that mean? Well, it means you can actually get a very “hard” light source.

On the left we have a very soft light source, no real shadows as the light wraps around, this was shot with a giant soft box. On the right we have a very hard light source with very hard, crisp shadows; this was shot with a strobes bare flash tube.

Whilst there are a million and one ways to “soften” the light, it’s actually quite difficult to get a very hard light source with strobes. Soft light is created by larger light sources like soft-boxes and umbrellas – the larger the light source in relation to the subject the softer the light. Conversely, hard light is typically created by smaller light sources – these are usually grids or snoots, lighting modifiers that funnel the light to one area thereby having a smaller effective light source. So what's different about this Universal Spot Attachment over other light sources like snoots and grids?

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Here we can clearly see the effect a snoot creates on a white wall. The light is being channelled and bounced around until it leaves the end of the snoot; the resulting light has many light and dark resulting elements rather than an even spread of light. This is fine for hair lights and edge lights, but for a key light it's definitely not ideal.

For starters, the flash tubes in strobes are actually relatively large, the light is distributed around a tube and is dispersed in all directions. No matter how much shaping and channelling your lighting modifiers do, all they are essentially doing is bouncing the light in a controlled way. However, more importantly, all light shaping affects the quality of the light: the flash will bounce around in a snoot and come out with pockets of light and dark (see inset image for the resulting light of a snoot on a white wall). Grids will also leave a honeycomb grid pattern, which is fine for hair lighting and where it’s not pointing directly onto the skin, but this can sometimes leave undesirable shadows if used as a key light on the model’s face.

All of the above issues are eliminated with the Universal Spot Attachment as its lens focuses the light and does not rely on channelling to control its size.

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The Universal Spot Attachment creates an incredibly hard and crisp light. This is due to its lens that focuses the light directly onto your subject. It's also worth noting how clean the light is on the background - there are no patches of light and shadow and it has a fantastic quality of light due to the lens on the front of the attachment. -Clicking on the image will enlarge it-

So now that we've established that it creates a very “hard” light source – what can we do with it? This incredibly hard and stark light is currently very popular as it almost gives the feeling of a “retro flash look”; the nostalgic old flashes were very small and as a result had a very hard lighting effect and this effect is currently seen a lot in fashion advertising. The hard light is synonymous with the brilliant sunlight of a cloudless sky and gives amazing contrast to black and white shots and brilliant saturation to colours; it’s also an incredibly clean light – look at the images here and the background is spotless, no weird shadows from channelled light.

I also experimented with the addition of a subtle fill light in the form of a small soft box at the model’s feet. In the image featured below you can see that it helps to lift the shadow’s density without breaking the strength of the shadow transition. I actually really like this effect and will certainly be playing with this further.

Now that we know what the Universal Spot Attachments niche is in the lighting modifier market, let’s have a look at the actual features. Firstly, as previously mentioned, the attachment has a lens situated right at the end of the modifier which can be moved in and out to focus the light further, and I'll go into why that’s important in a moment.

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This image has a fill light in the form of a small soft box positioned at the models feet. This creates a gorgeous quality of light, the soft-box lifts the shadows slightly without reducing the shadow transition and the shadows remain very crisp and clear.  -Clicking on the image will enlarge it-

The removable gobo holder.

Secondly, another fundamental feature is that the Universal Spot Attachment has a “gobo” (go-between light and subject) holder: this is a metal disk that can slide in and out to allow for a variety of different patterns to be placed between the light and your subject.

Bowens does a specific pack that consists of a variety of patterns like venetian blinds, foliage and shapes; I didn't have this pack but I decided to have a play with my own “gobos” instead.  This really is where the Universal Spot Attachment stands out in my opinion: the ability to shine a variety of shapes, images, gels and such onto your subject or background is pretty unique. Yes, you can do something similar with projectors but this involves a continuous light source – this is not only very dim in brightness and require a higher ISO to be used, but projectors also add another colour temperature if you want to mix it with flash. By having the Universal Spot Attachment shine the desired effect, you not only get the ability to control it via a far brighter flash power but you also no longer have to worry about mixing colour temperatures. As a result you can shine your gobo onto your background and light your subject independently, with the luxury of very quick shutter speeds, low ISO and your choice of aperture. Plus your setup will have a consistent colour temperature throughout, negating the need for a multitude of colour correcting gels.

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This image has the punctured Cinefoil placed into the gobo holder and shone directly onto the model. Its important to note that the Universal Spot Attachment lens was adjusted to throw the effect completely out of focus. -Clicking on the image will enlarge it-

Small sheet of Cinefoil, punctured with holes and placed into the gobo holder.

With the ability to add a variety of gobos to the set-up I experimented with a few different things. First, I made my own basic gobo from simple 'Cinefoil' (essentially heat resistant black tinfoil): I punctured several holes in the small sheet and placed it into the gobo holder. You can get varying results with this technique by bringing the lens further or closer to the gobo, sharpening or blurring the effect. For my preference I went for a very blurry dappling effect on the model and the results are shown here.

A graduated lens filter. These are really designed for landscape photographers to hold in front of their lenses to enhance sunsets but in this instance I'm using it in my Universal Spot Attachment to create graduated gels.

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In this image I’ve shone the gradient lens filter directly onto the model to give a complete sweep of colour throughout the image. I would like to experiment further with this and try having the colour gradient behind the model instead. -Clicking on the image will enlarge it-

Next, I tried graduated gels. I think this is something pretty unique and I struggle to see how else it could be achieved in-camera and using strobes; the idea came from looking at the old landscape photography lens filters, where they place graduated filters in front of their lenses to add colour to sunsets or seascapes and skies. I took one of these sunset filters and placed it into the gobo slot and thanks to the focusing aspect of the Universal Spot Attachment, the colour retained its graduation. Unfortunately I only picked up one colour filter as I was unsure if it would actually work, but now that I know it will maintain its colour gradient I will certainly be picking up a few more of these in a variety of colours. Additionally, because I'm not actually shooting through them I don't need to worry too much about the filter quality so I can get them overseas for literally only a few pounds.

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A lot of the previous gobo's I had played with benefited from being projected into the scene out of focus. This time I wanted to try a gobo that I thought would benefit from being in-focus. Here I placed a slide mount covered in small letters into the gobo holder and focused it onto the scene. -Clicking on the image will enlarge it-

I found a few old slide mounts and applied some Letracet letters to create a scene to shine onto the model and background.

Finally, I had a play with something a bit more artistic – I wanted to add something that would lend itself well to the hardness of the light but also benefit from the gobo being in-focus, and decided to play with idea of projecting slides onto the scene. I found some old slide mounts and proceeded to apply some Letracet letters (dry-transfer lettering) to the frame, placed the slides into the gobo holder and focused the letters onto the model. The results can be seen here and they give a very interesting look that works well when the Universal Spot Attachment lens is focused.

Some points to bear in mind whilst using the Universal Spot Attachment.

• Firstly this attachment will make your flash a very unforgiving light source and the hardness of the light will exaggerate all the subject’s features due to its strong contrasting light, but this can create some dramatic effects.
• Secondly the Universal Spot Attachment has a lens on the front, as a result of it focusing the light you tend to lose some light intensity and consequently you will probably need to increase the power output on the strobe. As a rough guide, these tests were measured on a 500w head that was positioned about 2 metres away from the subject at full power and metered at ISO 100 at f5.6.
• Thirdly, because of the focusing ability, the beam is concentrated into a circle of light. If I had zoomed my camera out any further you would start to see the “vignetting” of the attachment. As a rough guide, you would be able to shoot a 3/4 length shot of a model without the vignetting effect with the light, again, about 2 metres away.
• Finally and most importantly, this attachment is a closed unit to eliminate any light spill. As a result if you use it with the modelling bulb on, the metal casing will become extremely hot. As I was using non-approved gobos, I'm pretty confident they would have melted had I been using them with the modelling bulbs on.

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Some of the benefits and features of the Universal Spot Attachment.

• One of the only ways to get a very hard light source: the ability to literally focus the light onto the scene means that the shadows are incredibly crisp, and as a result the contrast and saturation to the images is fantastic.
• The quality of light is incredibly clean due to the attachment’s lens, so this is perfect for creating clean stark backgrounds with a consistent exposure throughout the scene. Again there are very few attachments that would be able to achieve this look.
• The ability to play with gobos in a multitude of ways is not only a lot of fun, but also creates some unique looks that cannot be created in any other way. With the implementation of image slides and products like Cinefoil and lens filters, the creative possibilities are virtually endless.
• The ability to project any of these gobos through an attachment powered by a strobe is unique. Previously I've experimented with slide projectors and digital projectors but not only do they have a low power output, they are also not colour balanced to the same Kelvin as strobes, meaning you will struggle to maintain colour consistency within an image.

Personally, I love the Universal Spot Attachment and will definitely be keeping it as a regular accompaniment to my kit bag. I’m also looking forward to experimenting with its possibilities further and already have more graduated gels on order, so look out for that unique lighting effect in future shoots.

Be sure to check out the full article in the next issue of the Bowens Litebook

Special thanks to the model Sophie Roach and collar designer Patrick Ian Hartley.

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For some further reading why not check out how some other lighting modifiers distort their light in this test I did Testing your Lighting Attachments for Light Fall-Off

Satisfy your curiosity as to Which is Better, Speedlights or Strobes?

If you are looking to experiment with gels and how the light falloff of certain modifiers effects their exposure why not check out Colour Gels Exposed