Lighting a background with one speedlight

sirch

sirch

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If you were going to light a white background with one flash gun for a head shot obviously there would be some fall-off, so where would you position the light? I.e Is there a better or preferred direction to have the darker part of the frame, e.g. darker bottom left or darker at the back of the head?
 
The logical choice would be to have the hotspot directly behind the head, making a fix fairly simple
 
IMO, you should place the darker part of the BG gradient behind the lighter portion of the subject... i.e. light the BG opposite of the subject.
Depending on what you are using to light the BG you can aim the light at the farther side and allow more spill to light the near side in order to compensate for falloff.
 
sk66 said:
IMO, you should place the darker part of the BG gradient behind the lighter portion of the subject... i.e. light the BG opposite of the subject.
Depending on what you are using to light the BG you can aim the light at the farther side and allow more spill to light the near side in order to compensate for falloff.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's kind of what I was thinking
 
As said directly behind the subjects head - also you can add coloured Gel's to the speedlight to be a tad more creative

Les
 
sirch said:
If you were going to light a white background with one flash gun for a head shot obviously there would be some fall-off, so where would you position the light? I.e Is there a better or preferred direction to have the darker part of the frame, e.g. darker bottom left or darker at the back of the head?
Click to expand...

Do you mean one light for the backdrop & another one for the subject? If so I'd put one light behind the backdrop - assuming it's semi-translucent.
Here's one I prepared earlier: http://www.simoncarterphotography.com/blog/2015/10/lighting-comparison
 
How far are you having the subject from the background. If you move the subject further away, can you light the backdrop with a single light hidden by the subject?
 
juggler said:
Do you mean one light for the backdrop & another one for the subject? If so I'd put one light behind the backdrop - assuming it's semi-translucent.
Here's one I prepared earlier: http://www.simoncarterphotography.com/blog/2015/10/lighting-comparison
Click to expand...

Byker28i said:
How far are you having the subject from the background. If you move the subject further away, can you light the backdrop with a single light hidden by the subject?
Click to expand...

Thanks both, yes one for the backgorund and one for the subject, see my profile photo which was a try-out, It was a white wall so had to be bounced but I had plenty of space so I put the light behind me.
 
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