Flash is an essential part of light shaping, but to catch the right feeling in your pictures you cannot always solely rely on light. With the OCF Gels you can shape light in color and create the mood you are after. To show an example, we asked fashion and beauty photographer Rossella Vanon to get creative.
Lighting and color has always been important ingredients in Rossella Vanon’s photography. Her delicate and dreamy, yet bold and rich look and feel has awarded her international acclaim in just a few years.
“I always prefer the look of gels used subtly and in a targeted way to when the colors are allowed to take over the entire image, uncontrolled,” says Rossella. “However, it tends to require the use of more light sources and certainly more time positioning and figuring out a balance between the place and intensity of all sources.”
But time was not something Rossella Vanon was blessed with for this shoot. Due to unforeseeable circumstances she and her team only had three hours to execute the entire shooting – including time for hair and makeup and for setting up all the lights.
Fortunately she was equipped with the Profoto B2 Off-Camera Flash and the pre-cut OCF Gels with the OCF Grid&GelHolder, which she could just snap on and off the flash heads.
“The portability of the kit made the process very quick,” says Rossella. “It took us very little time to set up, as all OCF Light Shaping Tools were simply ready to be attached to the B2 heads without the need to spend minutes assembling each one, whilst the OCF Grid&GelHolder allowed a super-quick change of gels throughout the day.”
To ensure that the effect of the gels was visible yet gentle, Rossella added a non-gelled light to the setup. She also made use of the subtle ambient light available in the studio.
“I like to keep things simple without overcomplicating and concentrate on details, playing with color and light to set the mood and really captivate the eye.”
Starting by deciding what effect she wants and positioning a Profoto B2 with OCF Gels, she then adds on non-gelled light, using a OCF Softbox 2’ Octa, to fade out the colors in some areas of the subject.
“Both the Profoto B2 and the OCF Grid&GelHolder are extremely compact, which allowed me to be very precise and targeted with my lighting setup. I had space to position the gelled lights close to one another, to create interesting color effects, and the precision of the gels allowed me to be very specific with where my color was going.”
Shaping light should be easy and fun. With the OCF Gels you can balance your flash light with ambient light, or boost your creativity with our set of color effect gels. And simplicity really is the key. The advice Rossella has to give is to start simple, play around, and really understand how light and color can affect the image and mood.
“It takes less than you may think to really understand what light can do. And one light can do a lot! Once you do master the use of light, you can do anything and everything.”
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The gear
2 x B2 Off-Camera Flash
1 x OCF Color Gel Starter Kit
1 x OCF Softbox 2’ Octa
1 x Air Remote TTL-N
The crew
Model: Jemilla King
Makeup and hair: Tamara Tott
Photography assistance: Radek Bayek
