Tip : Strobes can do a lot… and more

In the previous tip we looked at what strobes can do with the available light, let’s see today what happens if we start adding some gels.

In the first image we see Poeka only lit with the available light.
Now let’s add some strobes. (actually only one)

Totally different look, and as you can see Poeka is feeling much better with this setup.
Remember in this setup that the aperture controls the light on the model (the strobe) and the shutter speed the available light, so if you want more light in the background simply lower your shutter speed.

Now we want a little bit more mood in the shot.
For the next shot I added a green gel on the strobe and balanced on the green light, making this my new “white” which means that all available light will actually drop down to magenta.

As you can see Poeka really loves this look….

All jokes aside, you can do some crazy creative stuff when you start adding gels to strobes and know a little bit about the interaction between colors. In short (get my book “Mastering the model shoot” for much more information on this kind of stuff) if you use green white will turn Magenta, if you use red it will turn cyan and with blue it will turn yellow.

If you experiment with gels or you have a kick @ss image make sure to share it with me via social media 😀