A blank wall. A speedlight. A MagMod Magbeam. And suddenly the background behind your couple looks like nothing they have ever seen before.

The Magbeam has been around for years, but most photographers leave it sitting in a drawer. In the third tutorial of Neil Redfern's Something from Nothing series, that changes. Neil takes this underused piece of kit into his garage (with the ever-brilliant model Olga) and shows you exactly how to use the Magbeam's mask and gel system to project shapes and colours onto a background, creating portraits that are bold, dynamic and completely unlike anything a venue could ever offer you.

Shot across multiple lighting setups and building from a single light all the way to a three-light rig with coloured gels, this tutorial takes you through every stage of the process at real shooting pace. Neil covers the equipment, the positioning, the flash power choices and the creative decisions that take this from a cool experiment to a genuinely wow-worthy result. And yes, the final chapter includes a silhouette moment that Neil describes as one of his favourite tricks in the whole 'Something from Nothing' series.

This is the tutorial that will make you dig out your Magbeam and never put it away again. 🎉

Top 5 Things You Will Learn

1. What the Magbeam actually does (and which part you need): Understand the two functions of the Magbeam, why most photographers confuse them, and exactly which configuration to use to create the dramatic projected background effects in this tutorial.
2. How to project shapes and colours onto a background: Discover how Neil uses the Magbeam's mag masks (gobos) and gel system to throw coloured geometric shapes onto a plain wall, and the practical details of positioning, wall type and distance that make the effect really sing.
3. Building a multi-light setup from scratch: Follow Neil's step-by-step approach as he adds lights one at a time, dialling in each individually before combining them, so you always know exactly what each light is contributing to the final image.
4. Flash power and gel saturation: Learn why keeping flash power low is actually the key to getting the most vivid, saturated colours from your gels, and the specific power settings Neil uses throughout this shoot to keep everything looking bold and clean.
5. The silhouette first technique: Discover how Neil uses a silhouette as both a creative test shot and a deliverable image in its own right, and why this approach takes the pressure off the early stages of any multi-light setup.

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