To me, lighting is a fundamental factor in photography and I guess that many of you share this opinion. People use one light at the very beginning, when they don’t have more equipment, but a photo taken using one light doesn’t have to be worse than a photo taken with two or three lights. As usual, it all depends on the result you want to achieve – and there are situations where one light is absolutely sufficient and more lights would simply spoil the effect. Another example is outdoor photo shoots, where lights only supplement available light: you can achieve a lot even with one light because you may use available light to fill the shadows or illuminate the background as well as direct it with reflectors. Studio photography has more limitations, but one light still doesn’t mean a poor shot.

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I very often use a beauty dish as the key light, so I’ve decided to devote this post to it and thus give people unfamiliar with the topic a chance to learn what it is. It’s usually true that the softer the light, the better. Well, perhaps I am generalizing too much, but such is the widespread conviction. If I direct a light with no modifiers at my model, I will obtain hard light and the photo will look disastrous – coarse skin, hay-like hair and exceptionally unpleasant shadows. If I soften the light with a modifier (such as an umbrella or a softbox) put on its source, the result will be totally different: the skin will be smooth and the shadows will become much prettier – they will be soft and will fade mildly. The BD is different: it provides hard light which, however, looks good. It is hard to achieve the same effect with any other modifier. BD is also called a small sun because it is said to provide light a bit similar to sunlight, though I do not fully agree with this. Read more