It is obvious that certain light shapers are specially designed and built for clearly defined applications. Nevertheless, it would be a shame to limit ourselves to these applications. Using equipment "differently" is a source of creativity and forces us photographers to take a closer look at what actually happens with the light and what is possible.

This beauty portrait, which was created after a portrait lighting seminar in Hangzhou, China, proves this thesis: a Picobox (on a Picolite light) was used as the main light; in other words, a light shaper from product photography. This lighting seminar was perfectly organized and produced by https://www.relight.com.hk , the local broncolor representative.

The Picobox was positioned with the narrow side facing the model. This side is less wide than the model's face (Guo Feng from ESEE Hangzhou Models, China) and therefore practically does not reach the side areas of the face - the result is beautiful and strong brightness gradients right down to the practically completely unlit ears.

As the light source is also directed towards the photographer (i.e. away from the model), the result is not a strong overexposure in the forehead area, but another dominant gradation in the upper part of the picture. All in all, the light focuses perfectly on the crucial part of the portrait, Guo Feng's beautiful face.

The picture was only subtly brightened with a large white plate at about Guo's waist height. The strong vignetting of the background is achieved with a P70 normal reflector and a narrow honeycomb. The coloring is defined by the use of filters and color balance settings in the shooting software (before export).

Photographs were taken with a medium format camera and a focal length of 120mm. At ISO 100, the aperture was f/4.5 and the shutter speed 1/160 s.