Weird(d) lighting

Weird(d) lighting

A couple of hours spent with Dave (mistere) and Aimee_is_Weirdd recently provided a suitably silly subject for Sunday: an asymmetrical umbrella, designed (Dave thinks, and I agree) for half-length portraits. It’s firmly in the ‘very weird’ category of accessories, and presents interesting problems when you want to actually attach it to a flash unit.

It folds down just like any other umbrella for flash, but its construction is considerably more complex: for one thing, it has a diffuser permanently attached to the front. For another, it attaches to the flash unit with a clip on the side, rather than fitting into the standard brolly flash tube in the body of the flash. The ‘handle’ is noticeably thicker than standard brollies, and there’s a shroud that goes over the flash head, as you can see in the view from behind.



Also visible in that shot is the fact that the backing of the brolly obviously isn’t fully silvered, as I’d expect. It’s not two-tone, though – the lighter area in the middle is where there’s an internal diffuser sheet sewn into the back. Altogether quite a cunning assemblage: and I’ve never seen anything remotely like it.

Any further information about the device will be most welcome! If you can refer us (Dave and me) to a website, instructions, or specifics about the manufacturer, we’d be most grateful. We may be utterly mistaken about its purpose – if so, please let us know, and you’re free to enjoy doing so.

Some weird ideas take off: I remember the first time I saw an iPad, in the hands of a young auditor from one of the big five accountancy firms. He was clearly well off to the point of silliness, and had bought the device because it was new and from Apple. Neither I nor (more surprisingly he) could work out what it was actually useful for. These days, an iPad or one of the imitators is generally acknowledged as a wonderful mix of fun and function by members of all generations.

Others, like the Sinclair C5, resolutely fail to fly: it took Elon Musk’s Tesla to make electrical power sexy on the roads (and not just the worthy-but-slowish Peugeot that I experienced as a fleet car when I worked in Coventry 20 years ago).

Still other ideas have no inherent defects or problems, but just never catch fire, and I think the asymmetrical brolly is one of these. And I really, really want to know more about it!