Steve Bedell

Photographers all have their favorite light modifiers. Some like umbrellas, some softboxes, others parabolics, and then there’s the beauty dish, which seems to be a combination of a softbox and a parabolic. For those not familiar with the beauty dish, it’s a round but narrow modifier that you attach to your light. Think of it as a parabolic reflector painted white inside and flattened. If you stopped there, and you could, you’d have a pretty harsh light that makes a well-defined circular pattern with distinct shadows. But there is another little modification that makes a very big difference and also softens the light considerably while still maintaining that circular pattern. There is a bulb cover or center bounce dish that blocks the direct light from the flash and bounces it back into the dish. When used this way, the light output sits midway between a softbox and a parabolic.

When I look at old photos, I mean circa 1910, not my high school yearbook, I marvel at how beautiful they are. Those old time photographers had things a lot tougher than we do now, what with large format cameras, slow film speeds, and no electronic flash.

I'm going to take you on a trip to the not so long ago past, maybe about the year 2000 BD (Before Digital). Let's watch a photographer from Snap Studio go about his wedding order. First he shoots the job on two cameras, the "big" medium format camera for color and the little 35mm camera for his artsy black and white shots. He's careful to number his...