In this video I show you how to get four different looks from one gray background
AdoramaTV presents Take and Make Great Photography with Gavin Hoey.
Hello, I'm Gavin Hoey and you are watching AdoramaTV. brought to you by Adorama, the camera store that
has everything for us photographers. Now I'm working in a small studio 16
feet by 25 feet, and if you told me I could only have one background,
well guess what color I would choose? I'm always going to choose gray for a small
studio space and in this video and show you 4 great setups that you can do
with gray. It's versatility is tremendous, now I've got different gray here, I've got
to a gray painted textured wall, which is just brilliant but you could do
something simple like have gray seamless paper or even down there, the DIY route
with some great material, this is kinda stretchy fabric, that really works rather
well. Whatever you use, if you're working in a small studio grey is your best choice.
So lets a model in, lets get some lights set up, let's take some pictures. So today I'm joined in the studio
by Beth. Beth going to be the model against the gray background and this gray
background is just a plain paper gray background, now we're going to start with
a very simple lighting setup and then we'll get more interesting and
imaginative as this progresses so I just got a single softbox with the streak
light and because of the distance between and the background, we
should end up with a background that looks pretty similar to the color you
see here. Now we will test that by doing some shots I've metered this out ready f4
Let's get some pictures in the bag, here we go.
So we have just added a grid to the softbox, so the idea that is to give me a bit more directions to the light
If you are working inside of a small studio like I am a grid on a softbox is
one of the best things you can do to really help control and direct the light
so let's get Beth just to step backwards against the background for me
and I'll bring the lights in, right in front of you, like that, now because I've moved the
light I've got to remember to meter the light. So with the flash meter underneath Beth's chin, I'm still
getting f4, so I am still on exactly the same aperture I was on before. Ok let's
just take a couple shots like that.
So with the grey shot done, lets do black grey background black easily using the inverse square law
Now if you want to find out more about the inverse square law, check out the Adorama Learning Center
where you'll find tons of information on how you can use it to your advantage, but I all I need to do..
is ask Beth just to step forward for me
If you can come in a little bit... that's perfect with Beth very close to the light and the
background relatively further away the inverse square law says that background
should go basically black. I've still got the grid on the front of here that grid is
still going to help me give direction to the light, of course I need to remeter, so
I get my flash meter, pop it underneath Beth's chin, I'm getting f5.6, I could either
adjust the flash or just dial in at f5.6 that's what I'm going to do, lets take a
shot see if it goes black. And yes it does with the light really closer the model is not too
difficult to make the gray background drop out to black. So we can also make
the background go the opposite to black, we can go white by adding a second light, so if I get
a second streak light and put it right in behind Beth, and it is in as close to
the back of Beth as I can get, because this is a tiny studio space we don't
have a lot of room. I'm going to meter that out, let's just see what it comes and I'm
actually interested in not how much light is falling into the background
I'm interested on how much is falling onto the back of Beth's head. Now if you want to find out
why that's important
there's a video on... you guessed it AdoramaTV on how to make your white
backgrounds really white. I can see that the amount of light on the back of
Beth's head is no more than on the front, that means we shouldn't burn out the hair.
Let's take a shot see how that looks.
And there you have a lovely clean white background. It is a little bit more
difficult to make a gray background go white, than black but it can be done.
So we've done gray, we've done white, we've done black, well grey can do one more thing as well it
can go any colour you like with some gels. Now gels come in different sizes and
shapes and colors these are the gels that you can get specifically for the
streak light kit. I've got a red and a blue
combine them together I get a sort of purple color, and I reckon that's going to
work really well, so I'm just going pop that on to the light. Ok now that's going to effect the exposure when
you have a gel in front of a light, less light's going to come through, so it's a
good idea to meter, get an idea of what sort of exposure you're likely to get so if
I meter if this now, I'm getting f11 now I'm still shooting at f5.6.
The key light, the main light, that hasn't changed.
So f11, you might imagine quite bright in the background. It's best to take a shot and
have a look and see what you get, cause you might be surprised, now lets take a shot like that.
Ok Beth, I'm just going to do a simple headshot, and as you can see we've actually got
quite a strong color, now the lovely thing is I can change the intensity of the color
by changing the brightness of that background light so if I drop it down a
couple of stops which I can do here on the remote
Lets take the same shot again, and now we end up with a much richer, slightly darker
colored background, it really falls off nicely to a dark gray that's because the
background itself of course is gray, which is why of course if you are going to gel a
background, gray is a great color to work with especially in a small studio, but I reckon
with a bit of a lovely funky color going on there we can
get a bit more interesting with our shots, so lets give Beth some props, it's very hard to model without some props.
I'll give you a pair of sunglasses and I've got a video explaining how you can use props coming
up here in on AdoramaTV later in this series.
Ok let's just take a shot like this. Here we go...
Lets go for a symmetry shot...
So now you know why gray is the background color of choice for me in my small studio and over the
next series of videos I'll be working with gray background in lots of
different ways. Now if you want to see those videos and the other amazing videos from
the fantastic presenters right here on AdoramaTV, you know what you've got to be
doing you've got to be clicking on that subscribe button, I'm Gavin Hoey thanks
I'm Gavin Hoey, thanks for watching!
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