And then she's was gone...

Victoria

A week or so ago a young lady sent me a message suggesting we collaborate on a shoot. She has an interesting look so I write her saying "sure, let's do this tomorrow night". 24 hours later she arrives on time at my door after having made a 40 mile drive in Los Angeles rush hour traffic and is ready to shoot. I rarely if ever expect much out of a trade shoot with a model that hasn't been signed to an agency but there's always a chance that one is going to break the standard by being energetic, motivated, ready and willing to give it all for the creative process. Last week I shot a young lady by the name of Victoria. She's half Asian, half Français, born in Germany, raised in Poland and speaks 5 languages. Last but not least this young amateur model actually knows how to model. We shot for 3 hours and I don't believe she repeated a single pose.

Speedotron Beauty Dish...

Does anybody actually use one of these? I bought one as I've been using Speedotron strobes since I started creating images back in 1990. Granted my background is in tech, food and automotive photography but should this thing be this hard to use... I don't get it; this thing creates the hot spots (actually hot rings of light due to the dish's shape). This thing is supposed to be a replica of the Mola 22" dish but I'll tell you what, if the Mola dish works like this you can keep it and the Speedo in the same place; the garbage. I cannot remember when I've been more disappointed in or frustrated by a tool for my trade. I honestly feel that I get better results when using a simple Westcott satin white umbrella. I'll shoot some images and post them so that you can view the hot spots/rings produced by this reflector.