{"id":33321,"date":"2015-12-28T17:35:48","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T21:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=33321"},"modified":"2017-11-08T06:57:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T10:57:00","slug":"flash-photography-changing-the-background-color-with-gels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/flash-photography-changing-the-background-color-with-gels\/","title":{"rendered":"Flash photography – Changing the background color with gels"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Flash photography – Changing the background color with gels<\/h1>\n

One of the biggest challenges when working in a studio, is that you’re essentially shooting in a plain rectangular\u00a0box. When photographing portraits, the two obvious ways out of that is to create an interesting (or complementary) background, and then to create interesting (or flattering) lighting.<\/p>\n

The lighting itself need not be complex. For this series of portraits of Olive<\/a>, I used the gridded 1′ x 6′ softbox. By swinging it horizontally or vertically (or diagonally), I can change the way the light falls on my subject and the background. This article on\u00a0Chiaroscuro lighting<\/a>\u00a0is a good example. So with these portraits of Olive, I could easily control the light fall-off on her body with the tall gridded stripbox. (Btw, check out Olive’s Model Mayhem<\/a> page. She’s a delight to work with.)<\/p>\n

The main light on her was an easy fix this time. Now the background – I wanted to change the colors up to complement her clothing she’d change in. Instead of changing the rolls of paper-backdrop, it was much easier to light the background with a flash and colored gels.\u00a0For this I used the\u00a0MagMod2 basic kit<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0(B&H<\/a><\/em>\u00a0\/\u00a0Amazon<\/a><\/em>). To gel a flash there are numerous options, but I doubt any are as easy and quick to change as the Magmod setup – magnets clip the gel holder into place. Super-easy to place on the flash, and just as easy to take it off again. Magnets! I mentioned these in the recent post –\u00a0Best & worst photography purchases of 2015<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pull-back shot (shown further down) will show the mottled muslin backdrop that I used. The gels didn’t really add much light to the backdrop itself – the backdrop was there to help create a background that has some kind of texture.<\/p>\n

To hold the color of the background gels, we used a\u00a0Fog Machine<\/a> (B&H<\/a><\/em>\u00a0\/\u00a0Amazon<\/a>)<\/em>. It is inexpensive and fun to use. In the pullback shot you can see the remote cable for the smog machine on the floor – Olive would press this with a toe to release the fog while I was shooting a sequence. She’s quite\u00a0versatile as a model! The fog then created the dreamy texture, and showed the color of the gelled flash.<\/p>\n

All of this added up to different backgrounds. The fog gave a non-static background from image to image, and the gels would give different colors with different sequences.<\/p>\n

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Lighting setup<\/h2>\n

For this pull-back shot, I used the studio’s room lighting to show how the different elements were placed.<\/p>\n

On the left, the\u00a0gridded Profoto RFi 1\u2019\u00d76\u2019\u00a0softbox<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>), as the main light. I could swing and rotate this as I needed. The light-stand is on caster wheels, so it was easy to its position a bit.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Fog Machine<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate) is on the right, placed on the step-ladder. The fog would blow into the area behind Olive, towards the background flash.\u00a0The flash on the floor in the background, had the\u00a0MagMod\u00a0gels<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>), and was pointed up towards Olive.<\/p>\n

A relatively simple setup, providing a different look to every sequence we photographed.<\/p>\n

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Photo gear (or equivalents) used during this photo session<\/h2>\n