black backdrop

You'll notice that there are a lot of photos that are getting recycled between the two blogs. I just don't take enough photos to have different pictures for both blogs right now. That and I don't need to worry about publishing some photo where anyone doesn't feel like they are not presented properly. This photo is untouched from the camera.

Here I'll share a few facts about using the black backdrop. This photo is taken from a hospital cot that is half folded up with a black sheet over the now L-shaped bed. In the past I would throw a few black T-shirts on a bed, and as long as it covered the background for my subject, I would just cut out the rest and place it on a black background in post production. Now that my subject has grown, the black sheet really helps.

First, in post production, you can change the levels or threshold to where the black is cut off. This effectively lets you change all the black sheet to a darker black to eliminate some of the variance in the sheet color.


However, because the subject has dark hair, ideally I should have put the background further away for separation. It would be even better to have some light source that could get in between to serve as a rim light, since there is no light that really bounces off the black background and it is hard to differentiate where the head ends and the sheet begins. With a white background, this isn't as necessary as the reflected light will serve to separate the subject from the background. Here the subject is leaning on the background and his hair seems to disappear when the black level is reset.