Photographer Yuliya Panchenko travelled from the US to Paris for a bridal editorial shoot. She took this opportunity to test out the Snaplux light shaper. Accompanied by her ELB 400, it was the perfect kit for travelling.

It was one of the busiest coldest months in Paris. Full of designers, models, artists, and of course photographers. All of us, thrilled to be attending the Paris Fashion Week. This year, I had the amazing opportunity to attend the winter event. So, being in Paris I decided to do a bridal editorial shoot.

The crowds and weather quickly led me to my three biggest challenges.

1. Crowded area

One of the most iconic places in Paris, the Eiffel Tower is where the shoot was going to be happening.

The Eiffel Tower is already a busy area, so the additional attention meant there was extra preparation that was going to be needed.

2. Freezing weather

My model is going to be wearing a gorgeous bridal gown from one of the local bridal boutiques, Selestia Paris. With the weather being so cold, I was worried my model was going to freeze before we could complete the shoot.

3. Find a team

Finally, I needed to put together a team to make this shoot a success.

The team

With all the devoted and ecstatic people who had traveled to Paris to be a part of this event, it ended up not being too challenging to find a team. I found a great group of talented people who made the entire session a smooth, fun, and exciting experience. We all came from different parts of the US and were all just excited to shoot in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

My model Courtney’s elegance made is so you couldn’t even tell how cold it was during the shoot. The design of the dress allowed us to create some unique, dynamic images that can sometimes be hard to capture. The flow of this dress made capturing slow movements, such as a running down the steps, look astonishing.

The gear

Being a huge fan of Elinchrom equipment, I used the ELB 400 battery pack and the small Snaplux Octabox for this shoot. I was beyond excited to be the first to test it.

What I really enjoyed about the little Snaplux Octabox, is that it’s easy to compact and perfect for travel. This makes it incredibly useful for outdoor shoots, especially in crowded places like the Eiffel Tower where you need to move fast due to extremely limited time for a shoot.

The Snaplux opens as fast as an umbrella but it contains an outer diffuser and has a grid allowing you to control the direction of light. It’s very light and compact-able which allows carrying it around to be a breeze.

The exquisite soft light quality truly worked perfectly for the outdoor session.

This little light shaper helped tremendously with the success of this shoot and I look forward to using it in many of my future shoots!

The weather

Although it was super cold, cloudy, and rainy during the week, we were very lucky the day of the shoot.

Our shoot was the only time we were actually able to see the Paris sky. It was a beautiful blue sky with some wispy clouds which added an amazing texture to the captured images.