Night and Low-light Photography Photo Workshop

them to the flash. For example, the

LumiQuest gel holders make it easy to add

and remove gels from the front of the flash

and will work with other accessories at the

same time. That means that you could have

a gel over the flash and a snoot on at the

same time.

    ■   Softbox. Softboxes are usually used in por-

traits and are mainly used with studio strobes,

but you can also get a smaller softbox that

works on small flash units. These modifiers

take the small, hard light source and make it

a bigger, softer light source. Because the light

has to travel through the softbox material,

the light is also less intense. This would give

you a very large soft light to use on your light

painting, with soft edges. I used this for back-

grounds in many of my light painting edges

because it gives a muted softer light, and I like

that look.

    ■   Gobo. Gobo is a catchall term for anything

that goes between the light and the camera.

This can be a piece of board or cloth or any-

thing. There are some pre-made pieces that

attach to the small flash units and stop the

light from spilling out to the lens. This allows

you to light parts of the scene without the

light spilling everywhere.

Your flash can be a very powerful light, and when

used really close to the subject, it can easily over-

expose the scene. I have found that cupping my

hand over part of the flash head, in other words,

having my hand act as a gobo, works well, as it

did in Figure 9-5. I first lit the background bottles

with a burst from my flash from the right with my

hand cupped over the flash so the light didn’t

illuminate the bottle in front, and then I fitted a

The best way to use the flash for this type of light
painting is to create a snoot for the flash so that
you can really control where the light is going.
Then all you do is aim and press the test button
on the flash. One of the good things about using
the flash is that there are a wide variety of small
flash accessories, including grids and snoots from
LumiQuest and Honl. These accessories can help
to mold the light that reaches the subject.

■   Snoots. A snoot is just a tube that goes over

the flash head and helps to contain and direct
the light. The snoot can be made with just
about anything that you can wrap around the
flash head. The Honl Speed Snoot is created
out of ballistic nylon and comes in different
versions with different-colored insides. The
different-colored insides can affect the color
of the light, with the gold version adding a lit-
tle warmth to the light.

A great do-it-yourself project is to

create a snoot using an empty pasta

box and some black gaffer tape. Just cut the ends off

the box and use the tape to make nice edges. Then slide

it over the head of the flash.

tip

■   Grids. Grids are light modifiers that are made

to reduce the spread of light by having it go
through a bundle of small tubes as it leaves
the flash head. The size of the tubes affects the
spread of the light — the smaller the grid,
the tighter the light.

■   Gels and gel holders. Gels are small pieces of

acetate that go over the front of the flash and
change the color of the light that is produced.
You can buy gel kits that come with a variety
of different colors and usually a way to attach