Here's just a small sample of the variations you can get from putting a color filter over your background light (or any strobe). The point is to let you know that owning strobes with capabilities of accepting additional, optional light-modifying accessories (like these great strobes) is always better than buying lights that cannot be accessorized or expanded. A custom set of color filters or barndoors, or other accessories are always available to you (most for less than $20). The translucent white filter is like having a softbox! Just pop the white filter over your main light, and you'll soften the light as well as eliminating any possible "red-eye" problems! The point is to let you know that owning strobes with capabilities of accepting additional, optional light-modifying accessories (like these great BB-50 strobes) is always better than buying lights that cannot be accessorized or expanded. The background on all the shots above was a pure white muslin. The color intensities can range from a heavy, deep color, to a light tint, depending upon the settings you choose, the angle of your background light, and the distance of the background light from the backdrop. I made these exposures with a relatively light tint (and I purposely included the strobe in the shots, something we usually don't want!), so you could see it (we usually place the background strobe behind our subject, and hidden from the camera's view). If you'll notice, in the blue exposure (on the right), how I angled the BB-50 (by pointing it up), resulting in a tonal gradation of deeper color at the top, and lighter color at the bottom, to show you one of the many techniques you can use to give you all sorts of different coloration effects. Also be aware that these shots were made with a cheapie digital camera; your 35MM or mega-pixel digital camera pictures will have much better results. Heck, you can spend a whole week just playing around with this stuff! Just be sure you keep careful notes (you DO keep notes on your exposures, don't you?) so you'll be able to duplicate your favorite effects (see BELOW for a discussion of this important subject)! This set of 4 color filters (Gels) will fit both the BB-50 and the BB-100 strobes, plus it comes with a custom carrying case (fits all BB-Series strobes; nothing extra or different needed). Only 19.95 Back to top of page
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BARNDOORS

Ah, here's one of every photographer's favorite accessory. The barndoors is a wonderful, inexpensive, and easy way to modify and direct the light.

As you can see from this image, and the one below, we simply open and close the barndoors' four "doors" to control exactly where we want the light to go (and, of course, by extension, where we don't want the light to go).

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Sometimes we don't want any light to appear somewhere in our frame; one common example is when we don't want any light "spillover" to reach out backdrop (especially when we're after the solid black "dropout" effects so popular today). Conversely, when we're using a strobe as a backlight - to light our background - we often want to keep the light confined to our backdrop, and not illuminating the rest of our workspace; so we use the barndoors to restrict our light to the backdrop.

Other times, we want to keep the light directed onto a certain part of our subjects (like when we want to highlight the face of our portrait subject, or a product). There are a million uses for barndoors, and as your photographic talents (and needs:) increase, I have no doubt you'll want to add a barndoors (or a couple of barndoors) to your arsenal of studio equipment.

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Order a 4-Filter Set with a custom carrying case for 16.95

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Order a Barndoors for 21.95

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The Business of Photography - Selling Portraits: We have our portrait session where we make dozens and dozens of exposures (sometimes, we might even take a hundred pictures or more in a portrait session; especially if we're working with a family or group). Then, we send our clients home, telling them that we'll call them as soon as their prints come back. We then send the film or disk to our lab and have them make contact sheets for us; when we receive the contact sheets from the lab, we carefully examine each image, and pick out the very best 5 or 10 or 20 images (we never let our clients see ALL the images - there are always a bunch of exposures that turn out terrible)! There are those pictures where the client's eyes are closed (everybody blinks, and sometimes they blink just when we press that shutter button:); in other shots, the client moves their head or glances away and messes up our carefully-designed lighting. So we pick out the very best ten or twenty images out of all the pictures we made during the portrait sitting. The client never sees the imperfect images, only the very best of all our shots. Then, we have our lab make an 11 x 14 print of the best image, and then we have the next 5-10 best images made into 8 x 10 prints for us. The, we make 4 x 6 prints of perhaps about next 3-5 best images from the session. We then put the 11 x 14 print and maybe 3-4 of the 8 x 10 prints into beautiful frames. We set up all the pictures in our studio and call the client in to see all these lovely images (or we bring the pictures to our client's home or office for viewing). Of course, there are some portrait sessions wherein we make only a few pictures; perhaps a business executive wants one picture of himself for the company annual report, and isn't interested in any additional shots. But even then, always make at least a dozen exposures; that way we're sure of getting at least a couple of good images (just try to imagine how embarrassing it would be to call our client and tell him/her that we have to do the session all over again because none of the two or three pictures we took turned out good enough).

Why the frames? Because we also make quite a nice profit on selling picture frames, as well as pictures (albums, too)! The client ends up seeing only the most beautiful images (and thinks we're phenomenally-talented photographic artists:). They see how wonderful the pictures look in the lovely frames, and end up ordering lots of prints, and lots of frames. Always ask the client if grandma and grandpa would like some prints; after the client orders the 11 x 14s, 8 x 10s, 5 x 7s and 4 x 6 prints, always ask how many wallet-sized prints they would like. Write up a great order! Make a lot of money by making a lot of people very happy. Can you think of any better way to make a living? And, unless you're a gynecologist, in what other profession can you ask a magnificently beautiful girl (or guy, depending upon your outlook:) who you've only just met, to take off her clothes, and have her do so quickly and happily? Huh? AND get paid for doing it! Damn, I love photography! :-) BTW, no matter what your models may look like, always tell them they're beautiful/handsome; it makes them feel good about themselves, helps them loosen up for the camera, and is absolutely true - everyone has beauty, if only we have the eyes to see it. And therein lies the secret of every great photographer: he/she has developed the "photographic vision," the eyes to see the beauty in everything.

Buy a copy of Popular Photography, and every other photographic magazine you can find. Look for the ads that all the custom labs always have running in these magazines; also find the ads for wholesale suppliers of picture frames, albums, calendars, custom mugs, and poster-size prints. Call, e-mail, visit the web sites, or write to every supplier and ask for their wholesale price lists. Choose the labs and photographic suppliers you like, and compare prices and delivery times. Try out a few different sources, and after a while you'll have your favorite suppliers. You'll find that the prints and other supplies are surprisingly inexpensive, and you'll have a truly great markup for your profit. Wham, bam, you're on your way to a fun, creative, and wonderfully rewarding way to make a living doing something you love. What more can we ask out of life? OK, someone to love, perhaps? If you haven't met him/her yet, there are few better ways to find new friends (and lovers:) than through photography (after all, making people look great tends to impress them favorably, right?).

So give it a shot; there's no downside; if it works for you as a profession, great! If not, at the very least, you'll have a wonderful and creative hobby (along with the admiration of your friends and family). And at best, becoming a successful photographer means fame, fortune, and world travel; and the joys of the artistic creativity that accompanies such success aren't too difficult to learn to live with, huh? And don't forget about all the exquisitely beautiful / handsome models you'll be "forced" to work with, either! :) Hey, it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it, right? Life has few guarantees, but one thing you can be absolutely certain about is this: you can't possibly succeed unless you try.
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