Portrait photographer, Holly Wren has been using B2s since they were launched. The B2 units are the perfect match to her style of blending flash and ambient light. However when the B1X was launched Holly’s imagination was sparked into thoughts of what she could capture with the new B1X in a completely different style of shooting to normal.
Not wanting to make her life easy she was keen to produce something dramatic and really put the B1X through it’s paces. The basic premise was to freeze action, in ambient light, outdoors on location. To achieve her vision she needed the following; 3 x B1Xs, a big concete wall, 10kg of chalk powder, 2 assistants and 1 world football freestyle champion – enter Andrew Henderson. Andrew is 8 times UK and 5 times World Champion Freestyle Football Athlete – that makes him number 1 in the world.
In order to show off Andrew’s skills Holly wanted to highlight the movement. She started looking at shots of dancers with dust and decided to incorporate this into the shoot with Andrew.
To capture the movement of Andrew and the dust Holly used the B1X in freeze mode, enabling her to get her flash duration down to as little as 1/19000th of a second.
The main light was provided by an Umbrella Deep Silver XL with additional light from an OCF Magnum Reflector and an OCF 2’Octa Softbox.
Photographer: Holly Wren
Assistant: Diana Novikova
BTS Video: John Stewart (Vision Productions)
With thanks to Andrew Henderson and his amazing skills.
