Bill has been working with Soft Egg Crates® for several years, using them on almost every shoot, and demonstrating them at his inspirational Power of Lighting Workshops across the USA. "I was an early convert to the Soft Egg Crate® grids," he relates. "I was using a metal hexagonal-honeycomb grid on my medium Chimera; it gave me adequate control but it was too bulky and heavy to use for fast location set-ups. As soon as I saw the Soft Egg Crate® I realised that this was the solution to my problem. It fits into my pocket, sets up very quickly and gives me enormous flexibility."

Holshevnikoff has long been an advocate of soft light for video portraiture, but in the past had struggled to control it in situations where separation and contrast were important. Since he started using Soft Egg Crates® soft light has become his preferred key source. "I still occasionally use hard light for stronger modelling in situations like news sets, but I tend to keep it around a stop below the soft light. I'm only using it for its shadow quality, not because it's the only source I can control."

At his Power of Lighting workshops Bill has noticed that participants often complain that they have spent the money to buy a Chimera to get a warm, soft look, but they find that the light still looks like it's coming from an umbrella. "My reply is that the Chimera is only part of the solution, once they fit a Soft Egg Crate® they will not only have beautiful, soft light, but control over it as well. I advise everyone at my workshops to use them," he says. "I believe that every once in a while a tool comes along that changes the way people light. The Soft Egg Crate® is definitely such a tool.