2 Photographers Go Head-to-Head Shooting With Only Hard Reflectors

Profoto sets a challenge for photographers, Chris Knight and Lindsay Adler, to orchestrate a portrait shoot with some limitations: the color theme of the shoot is the Pantone Color of the Year and although each photographer can use as many lights as they like, they have to use hard reflectors.

I often preach the value of going behind the scenes of photoshoots to learn how top photographers work and what their setups look like. Well, what's better than one photographer's shoot? This video is, of course, advertising for Profoto under a thin veil, but that doesn't mean it's not highly useful content.

Both Knight and Adler have been given the same brief and it's interesting to see the routes they each take. The lighting and color restrictions mean that the results are bound to be high-contrast and similarly toned, but the directions are vastly different. Adler falls back on high-end fashion and Knight leans more toward an editorial style. Both photographers opt for complex lighting setups, but thankfully, they talk you through their decisions. It's worth noting that magenta can be a tremendously difficult color to work with when it comes to portraiture!

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