For those of you who know me, or have had a session with me, I LOVE to shoot into the sun! With that comes amazing and stunning pictures like the one you see above, and ones I shoot all the time. One of my friends even said that it's the yah "trademark shot"... but with that comes knowing what light to use and how to compete with the sun to get just the right exposure.Most of the time this requires some off camera light source, I use either my White Lightening X1600 or my Canon 580 EX. Over the course of my 365 project last year I had a great time playing around with those and creating alot of great lighting situations and eventually I will do a comparision post showing which I use at what time. But the main point of telling you this is because I rarely used a reflector! And the sad reason was because I could never fold the darn thing back up and would be so embaressed trying to do it in front of my clients. They would eventually try to help me, and by the end of it we were both frustrated and I would just bend it to fit in the trunk of my Mini Cooper until I could get it home and shove it in the closet.So after finally having it with the thing this May, after one of my Senior photo shoots; my husband was on a mission to find us a new reflector! He stumbled upon the SquareBounce and said Kelli, even you could use this one! I was SOLD! It arrived the day of the Couture Bridal photo shoot (that some of you may have seen the pictures from and I posted one below) and I whipped it out to test it and was immediately in love!It was so easy to open, to hold while shooting, and due to the handle it can stand open on its own. I continued to use it for the next couple sessions and finally had my husband tag along on a couple shoots so he could get it in action because I thought it was that awesome! And now comes the fun part... seeing the images that I captured using the SquareBounce! Enjoy and scroll to the bottom to see the pros & cons and where to get one for yourself! It is truly worth the investment!
To summarize, here are the Pros and Cons:Pros - Easy to open and close (see the video below), stands on it's own, light enough to hold while shooting or have someone else hold it for you, compact, comes with a carrying case, offers two reflecting surfaces a silver and white for different lighting situations, and the last but not least it is super EASY to fold and put away! Because of this I cannot wait to take my reflector with me to every single shoot, whereas in the past I would leave it at home on "accident" because I couldn't stand dealing with it! Cons - Depending on the angle of the sun the stand alone feature does not work because it reflects it at the wrong angle (the fix, just hold or have someone else hold it), sometimes the silver reflects too much in which case you can just switch to the white one, and lastly if shooting in windy conditions the SquareBounce will tip over (the fix, I bring a little weight with me and stick it on the handle which is the same thing you would do for any lighting equipment on a stand that may tip over)Overall this product is amazing and I will be recommending it to everyone! I want everyone to know that there is an alternative to struggling for hours trying to close other types of reflectors. So stop embarrassing yourself and got buy yourself a better reflector!!To purchase your own Nori SquareBounce check out their website, and become a fan on Facebook!
