commonly used size. Because this size of a beauty dish is smaller than the stan-
dard, medium softbox, its quality of light falls between that produced by a
larger metal reflector and a medium softbox. Beauty dishes provide more con-
trast than a softbox but produce softer shadows than a metal reflector.
How It Works.Basically, beauty dishes utilize a Hollywood technique
called board to board lighting, where the light hits one board, is reflected
onto another board, and then the reflected light hits your subject. Think of it
as a laser beam bouncing off mirrors. The studio flash head is mounted on the
back of the beauty dish, and directly in front of the flash head is a dome re-
flector. The light hits the dome when the flash head is fired, then the light
bounces into the 22-inch pan where its light quality is affected by the color of
that final pan, usually white or silver. The silver provides for more contrast,
whereas white beauty dishes are much softer.
102 LIGHTING FOR GLAMOUR PHOTOGRAPHY
One of my all time favorite models is
Hillary. In this photo, I decided to
capture her beauty in a subtle head-
shot. I used the Broncolor Verso
A2RFS power pack with a Broncolor
Picolite head fitted with a 22-inch
beauty dish. (CAMERA:Sony A900 fit-
ted with a Sony 135mm f/1.8 Sonnar
T Carl Zeiss lens. SETTINGS:135mm
effective focal length,^1 / 200 second
shutter speed, f/10, white balance
6000K, ISO 100)