Small Flash: Drama Lives in the Shadows

Step Three

To do this, I scrapped the safe approach and put away my pretty-picture-producing softbox and went for the grids to tighten up my lighting a little—well, I tightened it up a lot actually. I turned to a great 3-in-1 Honeycomb Grid (made by ExpoImaging) that provides a much more precise beam of light in 45°, 25°, and 16° increments, while maintaining a soft edge to the light falloff. (ExpoImaging makes flags and handy snoots too, which came into play in Step Four.)After experimenting, I found that the 25° grid focused just right on my model’s face provided enough light for the dramatic look I was after. At the same time, it produced a fairly soft natural vignette on the background as well.