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Hey, fellow photographer! How is it going?
Maybe you have got the one or the other backdrop
in your home studio or in your studio,
and if you are like me then you got
a while fabric backdrop, and black fabric backdrop,
and you shoot a couple of times on them,
and then you think, well it's a little bit boring.
So today is about how to add a little something extra to your photos
on simple backdrops which makes them more interesting.
I just got myself a Light Blaster.
This was the first time I was shooting with this device
and I wanted to share with you what I've found.
The Light Blaster is essentially a projector.
It hold a transparency slide which can show any image,
and on the one end I attach a speed light
and on the other end I attach a lens.
I reused a very old 17-45mm zoom lens for that,
but you can attach anything.
I believe this thing is a dream for photography flash nerds like myself.
It may work like a projector but of course a speed light is giving me
a ton more light than the lamp in a projector could actually do,
and the lens in front of it is interchangeable.
So I can put there whatever lens I want.
I started with a setup with a simple white curtain in the background.
I made a one light setup just an octabox as my main light.
It was powered by a speed light on 1/32nd of its power
and the camera was on ISO 100, the aperture was on f/2.8.
Shooting that on a simple white curtain
is a little bit boring, so I added a light blaster.
I projected a Yin-yang symbol onto the background.
Now, since I was projecting with white light onto a white background
I had to dial up my speed light quite a bit.
I dialed my Light Blaster speed light to 1/4 of its power and it worked.
I think it's made the photo starting to tell a story.
Then I changed to a simple black backdrop.
My setup was a lighting sandwich
where the model has light from left and right.
Again, just on the black background, I thought it's a little bit boring.
So, I did something crazy.
I sticked the light blaster onto my on-camera flash.
So my on-camera flash projected a simple grid onto the model.
I used the Mitros+ flash as my on-camera flash
and the Mitros+ can fire light and at the same time,
it is a radio control to control off-camera flashes.
I don't know if that would work with a flash
that uses optical transmission to control our flashes.
Most probably not, but
with radio control that experiment worked quite well.
The pattern which was projected onto the model
somehow obscured the model and it covered her.
It's a kind of alternative to clothes, I think.
It could be used for nudes,
which are not not nude if that make sense.
I also took the Light Blaster off-camera for this exercise.
I very much liked that effect as well. Very interesting.
So maybe this inspires you a little bit
to experiment yourself maybe with a Light Blaster
or maybe just with old diascope projector
or with a do-it-yourself solution.
There are plenty of options.
I hope you can find something interesting
and I wish you good light.