Add colour to your backgrounds

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Colour sets the mood. It is an important part of how we experience photographs. A black-and-white photo evokes different emotions than a colour image. In this article, I show two ways to add colour to your portrait.

Colour is therefore an important part of how we experience photographs. In fact, simply removing colour immediately gives a photo or video a completely different feel. But as well as being a 'mood maker', colour is also the perfect way to get much more out of your sets and shoots than you might think.

I usually help choose the perfect background for our clients, and very often the question comes up: 'We want to be able to use it as flexibly as possible'.

That is why I often advise taking one background with a theme, for example a graffiti wall or an old wall, depending on what suits you (or your target audience).

But one of my favourite background groups is 'Old masters'. These are often somewhat darker backgrounds with a gradient. You can use these backgrounds in several fantastic ways.

Here, for example, we see our model Claudia in front of one of these backgrounds. This is the Clicki Silver Tones. A background that is just 1.52 metres wide.

In the first photo, I am not using colour gels, just the background as it is. It is a nice photo in itself, but when I place a blue gel on the background, you immediately see that it gives the image a huge boost. The contrast and separation from the background are much clearer.

And if we use the omni-directional dome from Rogue (with a blue gel) and point it towards the camera, you can make both the background blue and give the model a small accent. And of course capture some lens flare in the camera as well.

By adding a gel, you can therefore create two completely different photos with the same setup. And when you know how many different colours there are in a Rogue pack...

And of course you can also combine colours in your lighting setup. You soon notice that a fairly neutral (but interesting) background that is somewhat darker gives you many different options.

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