The problem
A black truck is a mirror
Black paint and chrome don't show light the way most surfaces do. They reflect it. Point a bare flash at a black pickup and you get a small, hot white spot on the hood, harsh glare on the grille and dark holes everywhere else. Outdoors it gets worse, because every tree, cloud and bystander shows up in the paint.
Car manufacturers solve this in large drive-in studios with overhead light banks the size of the vehicle. Kevin wanted that same clean, sculpted look, but on location, with no studio within reach and no studio budget.
The build
From a yard sale to a light source
The answer was to make a light source as big as the truck. Kevin built it from parts most people would walk past.
The hoop
At a yard sale he found a broken above-ground pool, with no pump and no liner worth keeping. He paid $10 for it and kept one thing: the 14 to 16 ft frame that held it together.
The fabric
A local seamstress sewed white tablecloths together into one large panel, sized to the ring.
The canopy
The sewn panel was fixed to the pool frame and raised on stands over the truck, turning it into one huge sheet of diffusion above the hood and cab.
The brackets
A machine shop made custom brackets that fit the frame’s old leg slots, turned upward, so the flash heads could ride on the frame itself.
The lights
Four 1000 Ws Bowens heads were mounted above the canopy and fired down through the white fabric, never straight at the truck. Materials and sewing came to about $600.
How the light works
Small, hard light in. Big, soft light out.
A flash head on its own is a small, intense point of light. When that flash is driven through white fabric, the fabric itself starts to glow and becomes the light source. The source goes from a few inches across to many feet across.
That change is enormous on a reflective vehicle. Chrome and gloss paint now reflect a broad, even sheet of white instead of a pinpoint. Highlights run cleanly along the hood, grille bars and bumper. Shadows soften. The light wraps around the curves of the body, and the fabric also blocks a lot of the surroundings from reflecting in the paint.
How light lands on a curved, reflective panel such as a hood or bumper.
Size beats power
The bigger the source compared to the truck, the softer and cleaner the light.
Studio flash outdoors
1000 Ws heads have the power to push through fabric and still hold back daylight.
Clean chrome
The grille and bumper reflect a smooth white field instead of trees and sky.
Shape on black paint
Long highlights trace the hood and fenders, so a black truck still shows its form.