The future is so bright, you will need to wear shades ...

Following on from my previous blog article on studio lighting and how to set your lights up, this next article covers how to create your background lighting.

Basically a background should be just that, it can set the scene and even help to tell a story, but it should be complimentary to the main subject rather than distract from it.

The simplest background can be white for a higher key* image, or black for a lower key* image, and the lighting of the background is as important as the lighting of the subject itself, for instance: a white underexposed background will look grey, if you want a grey background that is perfect, but if you want a white one you need to light it so that it will be white in your images.

(* I will cover high and low key lighting in a future article).

In this blog article I will give you tips on how to change the colour of background using coloured gels, this is a fairly simple and very effective way to add some differences to the studio images you shoot. You will need one or two lights dedicated as your background lighting and these should be placed close to the area they are to light, for my illustrations here the lights are placed slightly higher than the subject and just out of the view finder and the light is directed on to a black paper background. The rule with such coloured gel lighting being that the saturation of colour is increased with a grey or black cloth or paper background because this will absorb more of the colour, whereas the bright blue in the the image above was put onto a white wall and although still a strong colour is more pastel than the blue illustrated below on a black background.

If we look at single colours first the illustrations below are using two background lights (one to either side of the subject) and having the same power output as well as the same coloured gel covering both of them. The results will vary dependent upon the power output of your lighting, it's proximity to the surface it is being shone onto and the coloured gels themselves, here wwe have green, blue and red:

As you can see from above green and blue are cool colours whereas red is a much stronger warmer colour which may over power some subjects. Generally for portraiture cooler colours are used as these flatter/ compliment skin tones. By positioning the the background lights closely behind the the subject this helps to add an almost hallo like effect around the subjects head, which purposely increases the separation of the subjects hair/hat from the background, this is especially beneficial with a dark haired subject and will avoid the need of a further hair lighting.

We can also be more creative by mixing our gels to create a gradient of different colours, however be aware that simply adding one colour over the other will not mix the colour the way it would if  the colour was a paint, often one colour can neutralise the other, so some experimentation is needed to get the effect you want:

Above are examples of mixing coloured gels. The centre image is a magenta gel and to either side the examples are of various blue gels being added to this. I personally like these effects because they add a uniqueness to the image, but I appreciate that not everyone will find them as pleasing to the eye. So for those seeking a particular colour then these should be purchased as there are thousands of colours and shades available from a good theater lighting specialist. However the colour you choose depending on the colour temperature of  light hat projects it may also change in tone, so this is one time where I  would recommend experimentation to ensure you have the colour you want prior to your photoshoot.

One final comment I would like to make is on safety, if you buy cheap coloured gels they may catch fire or at least melt, therefore buy from a reputable suppliers for the best results I recommend: Kave Theatre Services 
who have a very large selection of coloured gels at competitive prices, they are also very helpful as hopefully is this blog :-)