A Beauty Dish, a Horse and an Artist - Meet Marco Joe Fazio

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​Intro by Skip Cohen

Once a week I love to wander through Profoto's archives on their blog. Profoto manufactures incredible lighting equipment, but even more impressive than their technology is their dedication to education and helping photographers raise the bar on their skill set. Plus, at every conference, convention and many of the local hands-on workshops in professional photography you'll find them an active sponsor and participant.

Well, Monday was National Pet Day and what better way than to find a great post about photographing animals, especially horses. If you're a horse owner or know somebody who is, then you know there's a very special bond between animal and rider. There's also a strong demand for classic portraiture.

I typed in "Equine Portraits" in Google and came up with 702,000 hits. There are links to virtually every kind of image from oil paintings to drawings to photographic portraits. Photographing big animals is no easy task but requires the same understanding of lighting that produces a stunning portrait of an executive.

I love the way Rebecca Ahremark put together this post from a little over a year ago. Make sure you click the link to read the original complete blog post by Marco Joe Fazio. It will also give you a chance to see more of his work.

And, if you haven't checked out Profoto's Off-Camera Flash Systems, just click on the link below!

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Profoto's Off-Camera Flash systems

 by Rebecca Ahremark

The Softlight Reflector White, also known as The Beauty Dish is very popular when it comes to beauty and fashion shots. It offers an even light with crisp definition and contrast. For this shoot, photographer Marco Joe Fazio wanted to try something different and decided to use it on three four-footed models. 
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In a recent published story on his blog, Marco talks about the photo shoot he called “Proud Horse Portraits”, where he shot three beautiful horses owned by Miss Kayley Lanston. “Every production on location is always a challenge, but having as models three four-footed friends is definitely something that require extra attention and a careful planning.”, says Marco

The shoot was taken place in the Kent countryside, in front of an old barn nearby. When all the horses were in place they were ready to start shooting. Marco used a Profoto B1 equipped with a Softlight Reflector (Beauty Dish) as key light, to enhance the shape and the features of the horse’s heads. He used another B1, equipped with a Softbox RFi 1×6′ for fill light to illuminate the whole horse’s body. He also added a blue gel on the fill light to enhance the natural hue of the metal fence in the background. Finally he used a third B1 with a WideZoom Reflector on the side/back and used it as rim light on the horse’s rear.

Head over to his blog to see the rest of the story.

Learn more about our different Light Shaping Tools here: ​