Fadya in the studio. An exercise in lighting with HMIs from K5600.

I know a good percentage of photographers are wed to their flashes. They use em for everything. I'm more promiscuous with my lighting choices. At any one time we'll have racks of professional florescent fixtures, boxes filled with various tungsten lights, SMD LED lights, as well as three different flash systems in the studio. And that doesn't count the inventory of battery operated portables.

The fact is that different lights have a different affect on a photo shoot. Repetitive flash feels bouncy and staccato to me while feel of tungsten puts me into a time machine and takes me right back to the 1950's. HMIs are different. The light seems more liquid and at the same time its color response on sensors creates a look that's different from other sources. Color correct but a stretched out color range. The constant glow doesn't interrupt the give and take of the subject and the photographer. It's well mannered light.

There is a shutter speed, and it's different for nearly every situation, where constant HMI light gives a shutter speed that's fast enough to give the impression of frozen time but shows micro motion in the details that to me more accurately resembles the way our eyes see things. Sharp and soft overlayed on each other in a wonderful way. The faster the speeds the lesser the effect, and vice versa. I love the look I get with the shutter around 1/4th to 1/8th second. It's not a blur but it's not the sort of actinic sharpness that signals techno-fiction.

And, of course, everyone looks best in black and white.