Low profile hair light

You can shoot portraits in a 10 x 10 foot room. The problem isn't so much floor space as it is headroom. Most of us are shooting in a spare room or basement where the ceiling can be anywhere from 7 to 9 feet typically, so by the time you get a hairlight up there is little or no chance of shooting full length shots.

The idea here is based on a simple bounce card and is designed to get the light as close to the ceiling as possible for full length shots. The strobe mounted to the ceiling with a brolly box attached hung down 30 inches. The opening of this unit is 18 inches from the ceiling. The opening is 28 x 18 inches.

This is the bounce part. The whole thing is made from foam core glued together with a hot glue gun and attached to a wooden bracket that slides into the "C" shaped rail mounted to the ceiling. The rail allows me to position the unit a different distances from the BG.

This rail is very short for portraits but I can rearrange the studio to shoot down a longer distance and the rail on that side is 10 feet long. The rail is not really part of the hair light. You can permanently attach yours if you want.

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This is the back view showing how the back of the unit is attached to the standard AB reflector with hot glue. The back is intentionally removable by removing the reflector and replacing it with another. This allows the unit to throw some light onto the BG if desired. It's not going to light the BG evenly but I've gotten some interesting coverage in specific situations. It's just a convenient option.
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I may make an improved version with a larger opening and a removable diffusion panel, but we'll see. The quality of the light is surprisingly nice... A little "snappier" than a softbox and works very well on hair

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Thanks Gordon! A big part of studio photography for me has always been finding ways to get things done. It's fun and a great challenge at times. I once built a pool with 1 x 10's and plastic sheeting and filled it with buckets of water from the sink.

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It's done with a fog machine. They can be found at most stores that sell party supplies or music stores... I got mine at Guitar World, a national chain store.

 

Potayto, Potahto... whatever

and maybe if you sold fog machines...