When shooting on location, we often face 3 key challenges. The first is the lack of power. This can be very problematic for photographers who want to work with studio strobes away from a plug socket and still want a decent output. The second challenge is that you are at the mercy of mother nature. Especially in England, it can go from bright sun to rain in the blink of an eye. This is why equipment must be robust enough for all weathers and provide out-of-the-box solutions for fighting the elements. The final key challenge is portability. Anything that goes on location must be carried, therefor as a photographer you are always fighting to reduce the weight of your camera and lighting bags.
When shooting Missy Malone in the English countryside, we decided on the broncolor Move 1200L with two MobiLED heads and a Para88.
This meant we had two high power studio strobes that can literally fit into your pocket, provided you have a nice big winter jacket!
For the first setup, we went with a MobiLED inside of the Para 88 to mimic sunlight hitting our model’s face. By using the Para88 at a wide focus point, we were able to light the area our model was in, but flagging off the foreground and the background, creating a beautiful natural contrast between the centre of the frame and the top & bottom. Luckily, the weather worked in our favour and we got lucky with a clear blue sky behind our model, and a very dark cloud above our heads blocking off the sun. This meant we had a lot more control to light our subject.
In the second setup we used the bare bulb of the MobiLED to get a hard look. The light is so lightweight that Georgie our lighting tech was able to boom the light out for long lengths of time without any strain. This made it super versatile and easy to make quick changes whilst we shot.
The final setup was a bit more complicated as due to the sudden change in weather, we needed to shine some light onto the background as it was being lost into darkness. Luckily the Move 1200L pack allows for two lights to be powered at the same time, which meant we could have one light inside a Para88, and the other shinning onto the background. Whilst shooting this final shot, it began to rain. The Move pack comes in a protective bag which meant we kept shooting and weren’t limited in where we had to put it as it was always protected.
Overall having the Move 1200L pack on location was a treat. It meant we could work quickly, didn’t have to carry heavy generators or heavier strobes on such a big location, and were able to fight the weather.
Team:
Photographer: Nathan Ryan
Lighting: Georgie Swinford
BTS: Naoki Onimaru
BTS: Taran Padam
Production: Joanna Hodson
Model: Missy Malone
