In this video I tested out four different
ways of making a breeze in the studio.
Hello, I'm Gavin Hoey and your watching
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photographers. If like me you work in
a small home studio you know that if you
want movement - it can be quite tricky
because you're limited with space
however you've got a model with floaty
hair or wearing floaty outfits then
you can create movement by creating a
breeze, and that's what we're gonna do
four different ways of creating a breeze.
I'll be using a classic studio wind
machine, I've got a reasonably sized home
cooling fan, I've got a big board that we
can flap up and down and finally I've got a
hairdryer... oh well! we'll see if any of
these work. I will get a model and we'll
get some lights and let's get shooting... so
today I've been joined in the studio by
Alice who's gonna be the model for the
shoot. And as you can see she looks
amazing with lovely floaty hair that's
going to look fantastic in these pictures.
But we're not just going to test hair
we're going to test fabric as well, we
got some floaty fabric to add into the
shots. Now let's talk about lighting, I've
got the Flashpoint Streetlight 360 in a
small soft box, and I'll use the same
lighting setup for all of these shots so
we can test...
well not the lighting, but the effect of
the various breeze making devices - it's
worth mentioning a bit health and safety
things are going to float around in here
particularly when we get to the bigger
fans. If you got anything that's going to
blow away or blow over...
move it away from your set and well you
can't really move the light... we need that so
I've got a sandbag at the bottom to make
sure that, that doesn't blow over.
We don't want it landing on Alice, that really
would make a bad shoot, so the first
thing we're gonna use is a real low-tech
approach and it just involves well
anything that you can use to create a
breeze by flapping around in this case
I'm using a large 5 in1 reflector but it
could literally be just a piece of
cardboard
these are great because the chances are
you're going to have something like this
lying around in the studio and they
really do create a really good breeze,
there's a little tip I'm going to give
you if you're going to use this
reflected type of board remember that
sometimes they have a shiny side and if
you're doing it on
the side that's opposite your light you
might accidentally bounce some light in
that you don't want, so do think
about using the black side as your your
kind of main side rather than the shiny
silver. So there is one obvious problem
with doing this on your own
well you can't you can't really flap
this and take pictures at the same time
so I need an assistant. I'm gonna get
Sam in to help you out with this, there
we go, I'll give you that, she's gonna do
the flapping I'm gonna take the pictures.
Ok, are you ready Alice? Ok, here we go,
And you know what?... that's really
effective as long as you can get the
rhythm of the flapping and your
photography and the modelling in sync, right
let's also try that with some material
as well and see whether the, the board
can actually make some movement to this
this is quite floaty so I'm thinking
this might work quite well
Ok Alice if I give you that.. pop it around yourself
Next we're gonna try something that you
probably already have around the house,
it's a good old hair dryer, now it makes
sense to try one of these things, hair
dryers are designed to dry hair move the
hair around a little bit and we've got
to quite a powerful little hair drier right
here, it's certainly noisy and it's
definitely warm which has to be a plus
point but is it any use in the studio to
move hair.
I'm not too confident about this but
we'll see, we'll give it a whirl
Ok let's take some pictures, ok full power
Well, yeah okay, it worked,
sort of yeah, let's see if it works with
the material as well why not? let's give
it a whirl..
yeah! no, that didn't work! So next up
we've got something that I can't use on
my own we have a electric fan and this
is terrific because it has a few
benefits the obvious one being I can do
this on my own
second one is it's got a bit more
direction and the third one, it's constant as
well, so Alice gets to model without
having to wait for the, the moment when
the breeze is just right, but how much of
a breeze are we going to get when I
don't know, there's three settings on
this I'm guessing maximum setting, let's
start there.
So I'll turn this on, and we'll take a
few pictures. Alice are you ready... ok..
here we go
Lets switch that off,
it's a bit chilly that side of the fan,
it's not too bad my side, but do bear
that in mind, you don't freeze your
models, it's not much fun, but we gotta
try something else, we're gonna get the
fabric and go again!
Yeah that was pretty successful, but we've
got one more thing to try. Have we saved
the best for last
Ok let's find out, let's get the wind
machine out. The final thing we're going
to use is the classic studio wind
machine and these really are quite
exciting things to use and quite breezy
and I'm gonna be a little bit of health
and safety because you're gonna need an
operator whether that's you or somebody
else to set this up, these things will
blow out a lot of air but they also pull
through a lot of air, so if you've got
long hair or loose clothing they may get
sucked into the back of the machine
which is never going to end happily so
in this case we got Sam with her
hair up just for the health and safety
point of view.
Ok it has a variable power control so I
think we should fire this up on its'
lowest power and then work through to
the more powerful wind and see how it
works, Alice are you ready.. it's too late
we're going... ok... here we go
well, it's not the quietest thing in the
world but it's very effective
yes things do get blown around that's
fine
ok let's try that with a bit of fabric
as well
ok that's really great fun I reckon this
is the thing I want to use so let's have
a go with this we're trying to cover
different setups and see what amazing
pictures we can get you up for this
right.. lets do it.
yeah
that's it, that's fabulous.
So if you can lean that into the breeze
that's it... perfect...
Just tilt the end forwards, that's it
So having tested all four things, here are my
final thoughts.
It's really hard to beat the price of the
flappy board and it works really well if
you can get the rhythm right.
However the hairdryer is very disappointing
not much power, and had to get it way too
close. The home fan is really good if you
need just a light little breeze but for
a serious breeze
well the wind machine wins hands down
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I'm Gavin Hoey thanks for watching
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