Lighting Your Background

Last week I showed you a picture of Ainsley where I used a white background, but because I did not use a light on the background itself, it actually turned gray in the picture. Here's another look at it:



Last night I took a couple of shots of her with the same exact background, only this time I put a strobe directly behind her facing the white background. This gives us the kind of look you see in many magazine shoots that look very clean and crisp. The way you do this, is to make sure the light on the background is about 2 stops brighter than the light you have on your subject. Here's the keeper from last night:



So the setup for this shot was one SB800 shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser to camera right and above Ainsley (see the catch light in her eyes). I had a white Westcott reflector hanging beside her to camera left to fill in some of the shadows on that side of her face. Then one more SB800 directly behind her facing the background exactly 2 stops more powerful than the main light. I fired the two strobes with the SU800.

You can just imagine the cover: