Wow, seeing mention of Hosemaster takes me back. I was around Aaron as his set designer/modelmaker when he was still developing the project. At one point, it was housed in a metal bucket and affectionately nicknamed Bucket o'Rays. I wasn't thrilled about the Hosemaster name for some time, but it grew on me, and it was unquestionably better than Bucket o'Rays.
Those hour plus exposures with Aaron performing a hundred little gestures and effects within effects seem like ages ago. Of course, almost everything was in camera still, too (except for a little occasional help from Raphael, the first real digital retoucher). Aaron led the charge in killing off the hi-tec movement in advertising photography, when everything was as sterile as humanly possible. Even CG renderings have more soul than what was in vogue at the time. At his pinnacle, Aaron Jones represented one of the more extreme swings of the photography pendulum towards a painterly, romantic approach.
When Aaron moved to Washington State and got into motion control, it was astounding to see him using a dozen or so of the then commercially produced Hosemaster systems at once as a replacement for conventional lighting. I doubt anybody else ever had the means to have that many of them at once, all in one studio, especially as substitutes for Dedo lights.
Shout out to Chris Harlocker, who put the final polish on the Hosemaster system and brought it to market, and is now a VP at Calumet.
(Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .)
BTW: If I had some money that I was wanting to dispose of, and I wanted the most badass glorified flashlight imaginable, I think I might pick up one of these:
http://gl1hotlight.comGiven the price, though, I think I'll wait around for the knockoffs, since the technology is pretty straightforward.
