Photoflex by Phone

I got a call from a fellow photographer friend yesterday. I was in my hotel room and when he asked if I could help him with something photographic. I agreed and wondered what I could possibly help him with. What do I know that he doesn't? Was it a lighting question? Some strobe issue? Nope. He needed help re-folding a large oval Photoflex Light Disk. If you don't know what one of those is this entry isn't going to make much sense but anyone who does know knows that that's not the easiest thing to explain over the phone.

I had to lay down on my bed and mimic exactly how I'd do it and then try to describe my thumb up, thumb down, alternating, opposing, counter-clockwise hand-twisting over the phone. It reminded me of a 9th grade french class exercise where I had to instruct a fellow classmate to do certain tasks without looking at each other.

I don't know if I actually helped matters but it was nice to hear the cheer of a successful folding before I hung up. Not content with just a single fold, I told them that it's possible to fold it yet again to make it twice as small. I laughed when he declined to take up the challenge. We'll save that for an in-person demonstration.

As a sidebar, light disks rock. If I could only have one tool to help manipulate the light for my images, it wouldn't be a strobe, or a tota or a home depot kino. It'd be the simple genius of the photodisc. It's so critical to me, I keep one in my camera bag. Where my cameras go, so goes my Light disk.

Make pictures.