Lighting The Background

Note: Last October I published an article entitled “Background Light,” but there is a difference between providing special background light and LIGHTING THE BACKGROUND. Read on. 

Lighting The Background

by William Lulow

I have talked about the background in photographs many times before, but it is so important in making strong images that I thought I would revisit the subject. Most photographers really don’t spend much time thinking about the background in their images. If you are just taking images of landscapes or general scenes during broad daylight, the background is usually lit by the sun or any ambient light you may encounter. If, on the other hand, you are attempting to make purposeful images, and by this I mean those that may be used for publication or even in a family album, you need to pay close attention to the background. I kind of discovered this one day in my old studio back in Manhattan, when I decided I wanted to shoot some models on a white background. I set it up along with my trusty big umbrella and my studio electronic flash units, started making some test shots and was dismayed by the fact that my super white Savage Wide Tone background looked gray! It became obvious at that point that I needed to LIGHT THE BACKGROUND, if I wanted it to reproduced as white! 

That was a long time ago and now, whenever I am looking for a really pure white background, such as when I am photographing children, I need to bring all the lighting equipment necessary to light the background as well as my subjects. Here’s an example:

So, here is my granddaughter, Dylan, standing in front of my super white background. This was lit with my on-camera portable flash unit fitted with a large bounce card. Exposure was ISO 100, f/5.6 at 1/125th of a second. Her face is properly exposed, but look at the background! It’s practically a medium gray! 

The reason for this is what we refer to as “LAMP TO SUBJECT DISTANCE.” Dylan is just the right distance from the light source to have her features exposed properly. But the white background is much further from the light. That’s why it reproduces as gray. This becomes a lesson for all photographers to learn. IF YOU WANT A WHITE BACKGROUND TO REPRODUCE AS WHITE, IT NEEDS TO BE LIT. If you look carefully at this set, you will notice a small umbrella on each side of the paper. Also note how close they are placed to the background. I wanted the background to reproduce as pure white, so I made sure to light it from both sides evenly with an umbrella on each side to spread the light as widely as I could. Here is the result of a properly lit background:

The subject looks like she is almost floating in space, which is the effect I wanted. Unless you are purposely trying to create a pensive effect while photographing children, white backgrounds generally are better. They are light, airy and often aid in capturing the spirit of children of any age. This is not to say that darker backgrounds can’t be used with children effectively, but generally, they look better on pure white. 

So, the lighting setup for this shot was as follows:

The only differences were that I used umbrellas for the background and I did not use a fill-in softbox (camera right). Also, because I was using umbrellas with black backings, I didn’t need the gobos which would normally block extraneous light created by the flash heads. (By the way, I always use umbrellas that have a black backing on them. They retain ALL of the light created by the flash heads and bounce it back to whatever is being lit up. Umbrellas that are translucent let light pass through them and are not really designed to be used as a bounce-light source). 

Here is another example of when lighting the background is necessary:

This was a simple backyard party held at night. In order for me to show some of the setup, I used two off-camera lights placed to the left of the camera, each lighting up a separate table. If I hadn’t done that, the whole background would have been black due to the fall-off of the main light on the camera. Here’s another example:

These lights were set up for a fashion show to add accents to the garments as the models walked down the carpet. You can see the positions they are in. These weren’t bounced off umbrellas, but were designed not only to highlight the models but also to add some light to the background. The main light was on the camera, bounced into a white reflector card. Here is the result:

Here you can see that the background lights, set up as accent lights, also illuminated the background adding plenty of light, plus highlights to the overall image. 

Whenever you are shooting indoors and especially with artificial light you always want to make sure that the background is lit, just as you do when you want to render a specific background its true color.