Portrait photography tip: Completely white background

Thursday 24 June 2021, 16:32 by Elja Trum | 6,230 views | 1 comment

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

A classic studio image is a portrait with a completely white background. In practice, it can be quite difficult to get the background perfectly white.

Suzanne - f/9, 1/160s, 100 ISO @ 85mm
Too little light on your background and it will turn light grey, while too much light will cause details, such as the hair, to be 'eaten up' by the bright light from the background.

The best way to achieve a perfectly white background is to use a flash meter. First expose your subject and measure the values that go with it. Then light the white background, preferably with at least two flashes.

Measure the background and make sure it is 2.5 stops brighter than your reading of your model. Make sure you light the background as evenly as possible, measuring at several points.

Make sure there is enough distance between your model and your background so that the light from your background does not affect the light on your model.

If you are only shooting close to your model, there is another fun alternative. Instead of lighting a background roll, you can also use a large softbox as the background.

You then fire the flash in the softbox at the desired power to create a beautifully even white background.

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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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1 comment

martinphili wrote on Friday 25 June 2021 at 08:54 | reply
Portraits aren't really that much of a problem. I found full body much more difficult. To be honest, I could only get it perfect with a bit of post-processing.
Translated from Dutch.

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