Lighting the Back Drop

The front light that ligths the model is called the key light. This is also the light we're going to use when using the light meter. Only put the cell on the back drop lights as the key light doesn't need it on.

When you don't light up the back drop, it can look very grey, dark and uneven; therefore you need to create a white out is when you make the background completely white. To do this you need to add a light on either side of the back drop, with even power, to light up the background. Make sure both lights are the same and that they are the same difference from the model. The light needs to be going towards the back drop at a 45 degree angle. If the lights are too bright, there will be a flash back onto the model making the outline of the model fuzzy. If the lights aren't bright enough then you will still get shadows and discolouration, meaning a white out will not be achieved. 

You need to turn on the 'cell' switch so that the sensor on the light will flash when the key light goes off. When plugging in the sync lead to the light meter, you can plug it into the back ground light. You need to hold the light meter against the back drop so that you get the correct light meter reading. 

When there isn't much room in the studio put polyboards infront of the light so that the back drop lights don't go on the model. You need to make sure the f/ on the back drop is one stop higher than the f/ on the subject.

How to create a gradient 

Put just one light on the side of the back drop so that the light can go on one part and then fade to a darker colour on the other. You can use a floor stand if you want the light to be very low down, for example, if you wanted to create a gradient going upwards. 

Use barn doors to shape the light to stop the circle shape. Push the spill kill light shade. Into the barn doors to attach them. In the image below we used a red background and a small floor stand to get the light as low as possible. We pointed this up the back drop so that the bottom was brighter and then it faded to a darker red at the top. I really like how even the light looks and how flat the back drop looks. However there is some dark red at the bottom so I will need to make sure that I look out for this in future shoots.

Coloured gels

You can attach coloured gels onto the lights with gel holders. You can either light up the back drop or the model. When using coloured gels, always keep the key light so that it doesn't look too over the top. You can't use a light meter for this, it has to be experimental.

I had so much fun experimenting with coloured gels to create different effects and some example are shown below:
In the images below we used a white background and we put a coloured gel on the lights. We used a very short light stand to hold the coloured light and pointed the light up the back drop to create these coloured gradients. I really like how vibrant the colours look at the bottom, however the top of the images look quite grey. I think you would fix that by using a light on the top half with no coloured gel to make the top half look very bright and white.

In the images below we put a coloured gel over the light at the bottom so that we could create a gradient going upwards, as shown above. I then put a coloured gel over the light going onto the side of the model. We positioned the light at the side of the model just behind her so that the hair and side of the face was lit up. I really like how the two colours are very prominent and vibrant because it makes the image look very fun and bright. I think if I were to use this set up, I would make the colours more subtle to give a more professional look. I think I would have liked the images even more if the top of the images were completely white because the background looks quite dull and grey.

We created this image by accident but I really liked how it turned out! We kept the back drop exactly the same, by positioning the light very low down and pointing it upwards against the back drop. The blue light was then brought in front of the model, to the left, so that it completely lit up the model, making her look very blue! I think this effect looks very fun; however it is very dramatic so I think it would only be suitable for very specific photo shoots.