The Overused Gold Reflector

While many will describe my glamour photographic style as warm and some will even state that I often rely too much on warming gels and white-balance, I for one will tell you I only use these more warming techniques when I practice the glamour genre of photography, but rarely other genres. The gels and white-balance techniques I use serve a purpose, the right tool for the right job for my needs, though you rarely will see me use a gold reflector, as I rarely have a call for it’s original purpose—to warm a subject under cool-colored light, or the type of light often found in open shade.

Yes, I’ll fool my camera to warm-up my glamour photos by setting the white-balance at 6000K (Kelvin). I’ll also place a sheet of the Rosco Bastard Amber (#02) gel over my flash when shooting models at sunsets in the Virgin Islands and it’s no secret when photographing beautiful glamour models on location with multiple studio flash heads, I’ll put Rosco CTO’s (Continuous Temperature Orange) gels in various degrees (1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and even full CTO’s) over the flash heads for warm accent lights on the body or hair lights.

While I often use these warming techniques of white-balance and warming gels, one would think that I’m a big fan of the gold reflector, but I’m not unless it’s for one condition—to warm up my model skin tone when she’s posing in the colder light of open shade.

Let’s think about that for a moment. Since most photographers rarely carry color meters, how do we know what is cool or cold light? Well the easiest way to remember is to pretend you’re in Texas, where I live. Let’s pretend it’s a typical, hot summer day and you’re busy cutting the lawn. You decide to stop to take a break for an ice-cold margarita (hey, you’re in Texas remember, we don’t drink tea except at lunch). Sweat is just pouring down your face as the hot sun blazes down your neck. What’s the first think you do after you shut down the power mower? You head for shade. Why? You head for shade like an thirsty animal because it’s always cooler under shade. A simple lighting fundamental, if you’re outdoors, any area cooler than another adjoining area is illuminated by cool light.

Since most full-time photographers have to work and entire day to pay their bills and many wedding and portrait photographers have outdoor studios, the gold reflector’s purpose was created to allow them to work in the middle of the day while their subjects stood in open-shade areas to keep cool. The gold reflector was designed to add the opposite colors of the cyan and blue light under the shade to properly expose color negative film before the days of digital photography and white-balance. Photographer’s assistants would pump-in this more golden, yellow-red light from the gold reflector, thus allowing the subject being photographed to appear normal and not ice-cold blue or cyan.

Unfortunately many photographers use gold reflectors everywhere, not just the open-shaded areas, thus you often see an overuse of gold in images. While I’m known for my warm-toned glamour images, my style isn’t to make my models appear golden, nor will I use my white-balance and gel techniques for commercial or photojournalism work where I want to depict reality as reality. However, I will use zebra (silver and gold striped) California Sunbounce reflectors, since I do like a bit of punch with warmth in all my images and zebra fabric reflectors provide a tinge of warmth from the small gold stripes while the silver stripes provide a touch of contrast where the light is being reflected upon.

It’s all about utilizing the right tool for the right job. Gold reflectors were meant to warm up subjects placed in the cold light of open shade while silver reflectors were meant to add contrast and punch with a more neutral colorcast. White reflectors are meant for a softer, but neutral, added fill while black (yes, pure black reflects 10-percent of the light that hits it) reflectors are often used to add detail in highlighted areas like a bride’s wedding dress. Black also subtracts light when used in this manner, thus it’s also called a gobo, flag, cutter or scrim.

Normally my camera’s white-balance is manually set at 6,000K when shooting glamour. When I shoot sunsets you’ll see me place a Rosco Bastard Amber gel over my Hensel ring-flash with the optional Hensel Sunhaze attachment and when using multiple flash heads on a glamour shoot you might see me use various degrees of CTO’s. All in all, it’s my style as my glamour photos are normally warm, but for the most part, it’s also using the right tool for the right job for my expectations and because of that, rarely will you see me using a gold reflector.