I used to swear by natural light and would never use anything else unless I really need to. Well, here I am few years later... Curiosity and unpleasant feeling of being dependant on the light, especially on short winter days, made me want to try strobes. The source of inspiration was incredible work by Sandra Coan, a Seattle based newborn and family photographer, who uses artificial light with film exclusively. I thought, if it works for babies and their parents, then it probably should work for models and editorial work. The goal was to recreate the look of a natural light with an artificial one, and it wasn't a tricky thing to do as long as I would keep the power of the flash to a minimum. By the way, my setup was incredibly simple: just one light source, which was a Canon 580 EXII speedlite through five foot reflective umbrella with diffuser, Seconic L-358 light meter and Pocket Wizards Plus X triggers. As for the cameras, I was using Canon A1 with Kodak Color Plus for 35mm and Pentax 645n with Portra 400 for medium format shots. Below are the results from a few shoots I did in the recent time.
