Sid Siva’s Lighting tip-Snoot on a speedlight

Sometimes, when lighting a portrait, I like to restrict the light to a small tight spot. To do this with studio lights you can use a tool called a snoot which is nothing more than a conical (or tubular) device which fits on to the front of the light which is used to keep the light from spreading in all directions and directing it sharply.

For speedlights, you can either use commercially available products like the HonlPhoto Speed Snoot, or like me, you can rig something up for a quick and dirty solution.

In the portrait below of my good friend Mahmoud Kaabour the light on his face is very, very tight and shadowy. We chose to shoot this portrait in his favourite market in Satwa, Dubai. The streets in this locality are crowded and full of traffic. For this reason, studio lighting and big equipment was out of the question. I chose to shoot with a Nikon D200 with a 50mm f1.4, one SB800 speedlight and the assistance of Raja who was the VAL (voice activated lightstand!). The light needed to match the dark environment had to be shadowy and very restricted. In this case darkness was as important as the light! I didn’t have a proper snoot with me. So the quick solution we came up with was a random scrap of paper we found on the street which I fashioned into a tube and taped it onto the front of the speedlight. It wasn’t a perfect piece of engineering but served the purpose just fine! What enhanced the tightness of the beam of light on Mahmoud’s face was how close I positioned the speedlight. The beam gets even tighter the closer the snoot is to the subject. To further enhance the mood of the image, I added a warm gel to the speedlight.

You don’t always need expensive equipment for good results. Understanding how your existing equipment works and a little creativity goes a long way!