Parabolic Archives — Westcott University

Team Portrait Posing Tips

Matt Hernandez — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 15:30:45 +0000

Westcott Top Pro Matt Hernandez began his career as an award-winning graphic artist, then combined his love of photography with his design background and love of sports to become one of the country’s premier sports photographers. Here, Matt offers insightful posing tips for capturing professional and eye-catching team portraits. The most common mistake photographers make […]

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Parabolic Modifiers vs. Traditional Octabanks

Team Westcott — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 21:55:37 +0000

This article is courtesy of Santa Barbara-based photography educator Tim Meyer. True parabolic modifiers reflect light from a single point into parallel or collimated beams of light. The question is how this impacts the quality of light in a larger modifier. I had an opportunity to test the Westcott modifier. I wanted to compare it with […]

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Dramatic and Effective Lighting for Team Portraits

Matt Hernandez — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 21:34:27 +0000

Renowned sports photographer Matt Hernandez has had years of experience capturing professional and high school team portraits. Through years of shooting in a variety of locations, he has perfected the group lighting setup. To perfect the light coming from his key strobe, Matt prefers to use a reflective . By bouncing his strobe into this modifier, […]

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Timeless Fashion Portraits with the Zeppelin

Team Westcott — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 16:45:24 +0000

This image is from fashion portraits I shot recently while testing out the incredible . This modifier is fantastic for full body fashion portraits because of its large size. This helps to maintain even, soft lighting while the modifier can stay far out of frame. A strobe was mounted to a on the Zeppelin. While I only […]

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Using a Silver Bounce Umbrella on Major Productions

Team Westcott — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:40:28 +0000

As the Director of Photography for Saturday Night Live’s Film Unit, Alex Buono has had the ability to “play” with lots of different lighting equipment, finding the best options for illuminating a massive variety of scenes. Sometimes, the lights that best fit the bill on any given video production day are lights that may be […]

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Creating Awesome Senior Portraits with Only One Light Source

Matt Hernandez — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 20:51:37 +0000

Kentucky sports and senior portrait photographer Matt Hernandez is known for capturing dramatic, awesome senior portraits with relatively simple lighting setups. To capture these dramatic images of Cash, a high school football player, Matt uses a single strobe modified by the softbox. Matt specifically chooses the largest Zeppelin due to it’s ability to create a large, directed light source. […]

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The Must-Have Modifier for Studio Fashion Photography

Craig Beckta — Mon, 06 Jul 2015 18:54:07 +0000

In Westcott Top Pro photographer Craig Beckta’s latest behind-the-scenes video, he gives us a fantastic view of his studio fashion photography setup. For this photo shoot, Craig utilizes a 35″ Zeppelin Deep Parabolic softbox to modify his strobe. This setup creates a beautiful wraparound output, which is essential for high-key studio fashion photography. Craig places […]

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Modern Pin-Up Photography

Benny Migliorino — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 17:48:34 +0000

The shoot starts with the Yaphank Garage, a restored 1930’s-era gas and service station that these days is a museum. It’s about 15 minutes from my home in Long Island, New York, and I pass it countless times, each time thinking, I’ve got to do a shoot here. I get my chance this past summer […]

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Creating Soft Cross-Lighting with Joel Grimes

Joel Grimes — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 16:39:50 +0000

Successful commercial photographer Joel Grimes is known for creating dramatic lighting setups for eye-catching portraits. One of Joel’s go-to setups is soft cross-lighting. Cross-lighting is created by bouncing a large light source off of a large reflector or wall. To create an ultra-soft version of typical cross-lighting, Joel utilizes a large 7′ Parabolic Umbrella with […]

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Increasing Speedlite Power and Efficiency with the Triple Threat

Craig Beckta — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 14:10:38 +0000

Canadian portrait photographer Craig Beckta utilizes the Westcott bracket and a 7′ during this foggy portrait session. The bracket is a useful tool for portrait photographers as it allows of the mounting of multiple speedlites within any umbrella-style modifier. Utilizing multiple speedlites gives photographers the ability to increase the power coming from their modifier, allowing […]

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Choosing the Right Light Modifier with Joel Grimes

Joel Grimes — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 15:13:41 +0000

Both new photographers and experienced professionals often question which light modifier is the best choice for each and every photo shoot. World-renowned commercial photographer Joel Grimes has been working in the industry for nearly thirty years and has an immense understanding of light modification for portraiture. When choosing a light modifier, Joel suggests that photographers first […]

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Creating a Large Light Source On-Location

Justin Van Leeuwen — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 15:43:26 +0000

Westcott Top Pro and professional commercial photographer Justin Van Leeuwen demonstrates his use of the 7′ Parabolic Umbrella and the during an outdoor portrait shoot. To compete with the present sunlight, Justin places the umbrella angled toward his subject and advises his assistant to hold the reflector to add warmth and dimension. Shooting at a […]

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Creating Sports Composite Portrait with Photo Key

Matt Hernandez — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 16:29:05 +0000

Westcott Top Pro Matt Hernandez, who specializes in sports photography, uses Photo Key 6 to remove a green background for a sports composite. Watch how Matt sets up his lighting for this green screen image, and quickly brings it in to a football field background. With Photo Key 6 Pro, Matt was able to make […]

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Real Deal Review: Westcott Triple Threat Speedlite Bracket

Team Westcott — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 02:40:03 +0000

Photographer Ben Weatherston reviews the Westcott Triple Threat with a 7 foot parabolic umbrella, and a diffusion front panel for this week’s Real Deal Review. The Triple Threat is a speedlite accessory that allows photographers to mount three speedlites to one unit. This will not only give more power to photographers who use speedlites, but […]

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Wedding Photography Lighting Tips: Part 2

Jim Schmelzer — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 02:35:26 +0000

Westcott Top Pro Jim Schmelzer continues his wedding photography lighting tips from Part 1 at the church. Here, Jim will bring in his bride and groom to start shooting beautiful images. Jim was using the in this lighting setup. Along with using an umbrella for the main source of light, Jim also uses a on […]

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Using a 7′ Umbrella for Portraits

Team Westcott — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:54:20 +0000

Some people use umbrellas all the time. Reflective, shoot through, they just love the spill and shape of the light that comes out of them. For me, I like the control I get out of softboxes, strip lights, and octabanks. The light goes where I want it to go, not just everywhere. There’s no denying […]

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Bruce Dorn: Portraits with Speedlites

Bruce Dorn — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 08:38:20 +0000

Explorer of Light and Westcott Top Pro Elite Bruce Dorn has been teaching techniques for speedlites around the country for years through Canon Live Learning and his own workshops. With the Canon Digital Learning Center’s exclusive tutorials series on environmental portraits with speedlites, now an even larger amount of photographers can watch and learn. The series was designed […]

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Speedlites for Action Photography

Tyler Stableford — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 13:12:06 +0000

Explorer of Light Tyler Stableford takes us to the legendary Snowmass Terrain Park in Snowmass, Colorado, where he utilizes the radio functionality of the Canon 600EX-RT Speedlite system to achieve a perfect balance of ambient and speedlite lighting. Learn how to overpower the harsh mid-day sun to create dynamic action photos and portraits in tricky shooting situations. […]

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