Review : Profoto A2 flash & Clic light modifiers

Profoto has created an entire system of portable lighting with accessories around their Profoto A2 flash  (B&H / Amazon). With this behind-the-scenes video, I show how I used the Profoto A2 flashes and accessories during a photo session with a friend, Franklin Elliot, who is a musician and actor (Instagram / Youtube). The intent was to create a series of promotional photos, with a variety of looks.

During the extended photo session, we achieved 5 different setups. I want to highlight one of the setups here, showing the progression of the idea. Here is one of the series of final images – a swathe of yellow light against a blue tinted wall. All of it achieved with the Profoto A2 flashes, a softbox, a barn door set, and gels.

Here is the pull-back shot to show the positioning of the lights:

It started with the idea that if we combine yellow and blue gels, we would get closer to a normal skin tone where the two colors overlap.

Here is the strip of yellow light …. and the next image shows the splash of blue light from the softbox.

Combined, the final result is quite striking.

Camera settings and camera gear used for this sequence of photos

• 1/200 @ f/4 @ 400 ISO

• Sony A1  (B&H / Amazon)
• Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 GM ii  (B&H / Amazon)

• Profoto A2 flash  (B&H / Amazon)
• Profoto A10 flash  (B&H / Amazon)
• Profoto 2ft Clic Octabox  (B&H / Amazon)
• Profoto 2.7 ft Clic Octabox  (B&H / Amazon)
• Profoto Clic Barndoors  (B&H / Amazon)
• Clic Creative Gel kit  (B&H / Amazon)

Summary

The Clic system and the flashes are a nice, thorough and portable system, which will see a lot of use.