My good friend Jordan Murph and I wandered out to the beach today here in Ft. Lauderdale to play with his new speedlight soft box made by HonlPhoto. The soft light provided by the overcast and the textured clouds made for a perfect evening for portraits, especially on the beach.
We ran across Ken Medina, and he graciously obliged to allowing us to take a few portraits of him. He is one of the permitted staff members for S.T.O.P. (Sea Turtle Oversight Protection). You can become a fan of their Facebook page by clicking here. He came out to the beach to begin his shift of standing watch at one of the turtle nesting sites (which explains the chair on his back). All up and down the shoreline here, nesting sites for the sea turtles are marked off with signs warning of penalties for tampering with them. I found out that Florida is the second most important loggerhead sea turtle nesting habitat in the world, and that only 1 in 10,000 hatchlings survive into adulthood.
I wish I had more time to spend with Mr. Medina — he has beautiful story to be told. I think it’s so amazing when people care enough about animals to dedicate their lives to protecting them.
Concerning the soft box, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of light that it produced (we were using a Nikon SB-900 speedlight). My only complaint is that the soft box tends to crumple or fold easily, which prevents some of the light from passing through. Once you work through those issues, it performs wonderfully. It is sturdily made, and it’s price ($150) reflects that. It allows you to get soft-box quality light without having to drag out full-size strobes and the batteries to power them.
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