Early in 2018 when the snow was falling pretty heavily we did a fashion photography shoot using a 4 Profoto light setup. This took place at Kallos Studio in Calgary. Kallos is a Profoto dealer and rental center and also rents out a photography studio space. The contact details for them are below.

Our model for this shoot was Tessa Greiner who is a very talented fashion model and works all around the world.

The wardrobe was a mix of Zara, Gucci and then a few pieces of D&G.

I used a four light setup on the with my main light overhead which is a Profoto Pro-10 pack utilizing a Profoto ProHead with a Silver XL Deep Umbrella which had one layer of diffusion. As the ProHead is so light inside the umbrella it makes physically positioning the light over top of the model easier and faster if I wanted to make changes to the modifier position.

My main light was quite far over head of the model and out of reach for me so having the Profoto Pro-10 pack on the floor makes altering the power a breeze.

At the times when I don’t have an assistant with me, being able to use the equipment quickly and easily on my own is important especially when I have clients viewing the shoots as this adds a professionalism and beats balancing on a ladders changing settings on lights with clients watching.
There are more and more options nowadays for easily altering settings on lighting equipment with apps, wifi and remotes on camera getting better and better. I do still really like to have a lighting assistant with me on shoots and a lot of the time I still get them to change settings and move things around but the fact that you can control so much right from at your camera now is really helpful.

I used the Profoto Air Remote as the trigger. This was the first time I had used this remote before and I quickly adapted to it.

The second light was a Profoto D2 with a Profoto Softbox 2×3 RFI with a single layer of diffusion and this was directed at the lower body of the model so to make sure that all of the clothing was illuminated in the photos. I do like shadow and the drama it creates to an image but when I am working with clothes a lot of the time I want everything to be fully lit and for the detail in the fabrics to be visible.

The third light was a Profoto B1 with a Profoto Softbox 1×4 RFI and for this I mostly used it with no diffusion for this particular shoot.

This light was a background light that I used to alter the colour of the background and make it more of a light heather grey as opposed to a darker shade of grey that I would have had most of the time if it wasn’t lit. I altered the position and power on this light during the shoot to alter the look of the background in the shots.

My forth light is the new Profoto A1 which was used in a few different ways during the shoot. Mostly it was utilized as a rim light for the models face giving just a kiss of light along the side of the face and jaw line. For a few shots It was also used as a spot light on the background behind the model to create some depth to the images. Due to its small size it was easily placed behind Tessa without it entering the shot so saving editing time in post. Profoto A1 is so versatile working easily as a studio strobe in such a small package that it is incredibly easy to move around and use in unique ways. I was moving it around a lot by myself with very little effort, it was fast and produced the light I wanted.

On this editorial you can see that I used a variety of
different Profoto studio lighting with the Pro-10 Pack and ProHead, a
D2, B1, A1 and a variety of different light shaping tools and all of the
lights were consistent and balanced on every shot. This really is huge from a personal and commercial stand point.

For one I am confident that I can get the shots that I
want to capture which makes shooting more relaxed and fun and then for
my clients side they get to see high quality shots straight out of
camera, shots aren’t getting missed due to technical issues.

Another really big plus of using high quality studio lighting for my shoots is the time it saves me in post when editing. Having consistent high quality light for my shoots is so important to me and over the space of a work year saves so much time. Not having to spend extra hours fixing lighting issues in photo editing software allows for the flexibility of more free time to myself with family away from my computer and or the ability to shoot with more clients each month.

I really had fun sharing this shoot with you and I help that you enjoyed it to. See you in the next video!