Flash photography tip: Add some colour to your background

Thursday 7 September 2023, 14:41 by Elja Trum | 2,701 views | 2 comments

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

That white background in your studio can get a bit boring. Before you head to the shop and order all sorts of background rolls in funky colours, try using a flash with a colour filter to add some colour to the background.

Yana-Meau - f/9, 1/160s, 100 ISO @ 125mm
Ordering a set of colour filters is considerably cheaper than a complete collection of background rolls. You can also change a colour filter incredibly quickly.

For even lighting, you soon need two flashes with the same colour filter on them, but a coloured spotlight behind your subject can also give a great result.

This naturally works very well with a white background roll, but definitely try it with a black or grey roll too. You get beautiful dark, saturated colours from those. You will need to turn up the flash a bit more.

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About the author

Elja Trum is the founder of Photofacts and online photography course website Photofacts Academy. He has been writing about photography since 2006. Elja is also the author of (Dutch) books on composition, black-and-white photography, flash photography and portrait photography.

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2 comments

wim wilmers wrote on Tuesday 12 September 2023 at 10:45 | reply
In this way you can certainly do it but you will still need those gels to achieve the result. With the new possibilities of PS you can in fact create a new background very easily afterwards, Ps is nowadays so good at cutting people out that this has become my preference.
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Tuesday 12 September 2023 at 11:04 | reply
Yes, of course using Photoshop is always a good option too, and it is indeed becoming easier and faster.

But it is also quite fun to do it the old-fashioned way for a change.
Translated from Dutch.

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