Bright White Monster
I prefare natural light for portraits every time, but but some clients still want their portraits in the studio. But as a photographer working from home I don’t have studio and I’m always being asked if I could photograph them the “Venture” style, you know the style I mean, everything is all white. So I invested in one of the new Lastolite Highlite backgrounds which is really only a giant 8×7 foot soft box with zippers at all the sides that you place you flash head into. It’s so much easer than arriving at a clients home with white paper rolls and stands. It went up in about 5 sec, you just stick on the trail which has velcro along one side and your ready to go. Getting it down is another thing, I was ready to throw it out the window after sweating it out for 30 mins trying to fold it down again. Now I know how these things fold, I have a couple of other Lastolite backgrounds, but this thing is a beast. I had to just shove this thing into the back of my car, it took over the whole car! I got home and tried again, re read the instructions, tried again, and again for 3 hours, I just could not get it down. After a quick search on the web I soon realised I wasn’t the only photographer with a huge white monster taking over their home. After a while I found a guy who had a quick 4 point instruction on how to tame this beast and I was able to put it back into it’s cage. Anyway here is the sort of results you can expect with this monster of a backgroud, now I think it’s pretty good. I used 2 Bowens Esprit 750 flash heads, one in the background and one with a large 5 foot softbox almost straight on.
If anyone out there is struggling with one of these Highlights, give me a shout and I will help you tame your beast.


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