"If the background isn't helping, it's hurting"
This is the completion of my garage photo studio wall. As you can see, there is a very large flat gray wall... because gray is awesome.
When I started the project (see here for stages of the wall :) I considered many different colors and tones. To be honest it gave me a headache. So many great looking colors on other photographers backgrounds, how was I going to decide on a color. And of course, the headache of possibly having to change the color with paint... every time I wanted something different? Not gonna happen. So began a bit more education into color and light and how they play together. Forgive me if this is common knowledge, cause I am about to ramble on about this for a bit ;)
I know that using a flash with colored gels works well on white backgrounds. Put a piece of colored transparency film in front of a flash and bingo. It spews forth a ton of color onto whatever stands in front of it, wall or person. So why not a white background? Well, white will never go black. In the best of cases white can only be darkened to a horrible muddy gray color by turning off the background flash completely. White will always pick up and reflect back any little bit of light.
Enter neutral gray... Gray is the great level playing field. It doesn't add much to the light, nor does it take away all that much. It's wonderfully neutral. It's nothing... but again it is so much. Lets look at the picture to the right. This was taken after the first coat of flat gray paint. Slapped a red gel on the flash and snapped a quick shot. RED WALL! It actually worked. Well I kinda had a good idea it was going to anyway, you know from all the other people having already done it :)
Below you will find a series of shots all taken with the same setup and the same flat gray wall in the background. Only difference being what the background flash was doing. The white background is just the flash bare on the wall. The black background is no flash on the background (any light you see on that one is spill from the key light) the others are varying mixes of gels on the background flash. Enjoy!
 Bare flash |
 Flash off |
 Red and blue gel |
 Blue gel |
 Red gel |
 Bare flash at very low power |
