Martin Burke as Crumpet for Zach Theatre's "Santaland Diaries."
When I first started in photography the beginners all lit things with white umbrellas but they always coveted and aspired to own soft boxes. Especially Chimera soft boxes which were considered the cream of the crop. All of our photographer idols had studios filled with soft boxes. All sizes, from 12 by 12 inch up to 48 by 72 inches. There was a car shooter I knew in Dallas who had a custom soft box bank that was twelve feet by twenty feet. Amazing. And we would always marvel at the quality of light. Soft, yet directional. The boxes were relatively easy to set up and take down and at one point in my career I really couldn't understand why anyone would use anything else.
But then I started shooting stills on movie sets and at high end video shoots and I watched as directors of photography lit up their sets using mostly various big frames which, in conjunction with diffusion material, created panels of light. At first I thought they just didn't know about the existence of soft boxes but after some long conversations with grips and gaffers I started to understand that the panels could provide a much more comprehensive amount of control, and along with the control, more "looks" than could be pulled out of soft boxes.
I started collecting various frame sizes and cloths and using them in my work almost all the time. Once I learned just how much customization of light I could accomplish
