Deciding what colour backdrop to get

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karansaraf

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Karan
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I think I have almost made up my mind about this, but I thought I make a post to share my feelings and see what other people think about it.

I'm doing photography for a Ball, therefore the subjects will be wearing tuxes and ball gowns/dresses.

Now in terms of choices for backdrop, I could go for black, white, grey, colours (I don't want to have that cheesy cloudy pattern as I don't like the look of it).

Black - obviously cannot have this, as 99% of the men will be wearing black tuxes.

Colours - I could use colourful backdrops (dark blue looks good for example), except that I'd have to have at least 3 or more different colours because there are bound to be many girls there who are wearing the same colour dress as the backdrop and therefore will just blend in. I can't practically only have 2 because I'll be doing groups up to 10 and out of those, chances are 2 girls will be wearing the two colours of my backdrops! So colours are probably out because of the expense of having to buy many.

That leaves me with white and grey.

I've seen some good results with white backdrops, but a lot of people don't like photos against a white background because they think it looks too bland.

So at the moment, grey seems like a good choice - no colour clashes etc. with white in second place.

What are your thoughts? Are there any factors I've not taken into consideration?
 
I'd go white. If you want it to come out grey just reduce the light falling off it and shoot a faster shutter speed to reduce the exposure of it.
 
Foggy said:
I'd go white. If you want it to come out grey just reduce the light falling off it and shoot a faster shutter speed to reduce the exposure of it.
Click to expand...

I'd go white and illuminate the backdrop with flash and different coloured gels. You can then have as many coloured backdrps as you like by changing the gel colour.

Cheers

Ron
 
Ah, I should have mentioned my lighting gear as well - I am only going to have two flash heads which will both be illuminating the subjects, so I will have no flashes illuminating the background ergo only one colour.
 
In which case, the background is only going to come out grey anyway so might as well go white as it will be more flexible going forward.
 
Always go white! Always!!

Keep some distance between people and backdrop so they can be lit separately, so you're going to have a difference in light if someone is wearing white (Not too likely tbh). As mentioned, you can reduce the amount of light hitting the backdrop to get a gradient of light or a grey-er colour.

If at another stage, you want to play with colours, you've always got gels! I think buying a coloured backdrop is a recipe for disaster. :)
 
White (which for some reason some people describe as high key) is popular but creates lighting problems of its own unless done well, and will need 2 extra lights anyway.
Black can look exceptional, but you'll need one extra light (at least) to create backlightinging to define the edges of your subjects.
Both black and white make the shot look 2-dimensional.
Grey is the easiest and safest answer, simply a white background that isn't lit separately.
 
if you can pull them forwards enough even a slaved hotshoe flash could colour the BG and with a gridspot on it it would give a colour changing effect

*** grey works too as gary skillfully mentions :D
 
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