In 2022, broncolor reached out to us with an exciting project (and an even more exciting product). We were sworn to secrecy for months and worked with their team and agency to develop a photography style that reflected what was possible with these new light and power pack.

With a focus on dynamic shots achieved all in-camera, we set about designing 4 images showing circus performers in action, reflecting what the four unique selling points of the product are.

When we shot the campaign, the power pack was still in development and therefore we were using Scoro packs to power the Pulso L lights and using Siros strobes for background lights. This really highlighted the versatility of the broncolor product range. The high power and continuous light options from the new Pulso L lights whilst also using Siros rigged to the ceiling was incredible.

For the first image, we lit our subject with a para 177 and used a mix of flooters, small softboxes and reflectors to bring out details and pop certain colours. The power of the modifier bulb inside the Pulso L meant we had a decent level of light on the subject for focusing the lens even at over 5 meters away.

Using this as our base lighting for the other images, the versatility of the para kit really stood out. The focusing rod meant we could control the spread of light for the hero image, lighting up the podium, product, and subject without flooding the whole room.

A big emphasis was made on the colours for this series, so we used two broncolor Flooter light shapers rigged to the ceiling with a mix of coloured gels. Like all broncolor packs, we were able to use bronControl to change the power and settings on the lights without having to bring them down each time we needed to change something. We also used the RFS 2.1 trigger for quick power changes directly from the camera position. This meant we could quickly dial in the exact amount of colour fill we wanted in the background.

The hardest part of the shoot was making sure we made the product stand out. We applied our experience with studio product photography and decided to shoot ‘plates’ of the product with different lighting setups, allowing us to edit them all together in post-production.

We had both our photography team & video team working side by side as we not only wanted to produce the stills, but also a wide variety of video content. This meant whilst the photography team were setting up, the video team were shooting and doing their own lighting, and once we got the still image, they would then shoot various shots of the artists before everyone moved onto the next setup.

With shoots like this, time is of the essence and there’s often not enough time to perfect every element as we’d like. This is where photographers can lean a bit more on post-production to get the look that we were aiming for in camera. For these images, the bulk of the retouching time went into remove elements of the background and making the product look clean and slick. Then the colour grade played an important part in making the images feel like a consistent series. See a sample before/after to grasp how much post-production work goes into a campaign like this.