Background Color

I don't buy into many of the standard statements about what colors mean. But anybody, other than that 10% of men and 1% of women who are color-blind, will have very different reactions to a gray background versus a bright red one. At the school where I taught photography briefly, there was a bright red brick wall. Students would use it for a background at times, and the photos always came out extremely graphic and strong. So I decided to include a "bracket" of the background color.

You can have fun by partially sliding between the photos and creating your own color blends.

These are camera originals — we didn't switch the background colors in computer. Helper Mike swapped in and out colored papers behind Nicole.

Bottom Line: Consider the power of a flat, strong, color background.

100mm, f19, studio softbox at left, reflector on right

Left

Right

Yellow! In fact, it is SO yellow and so much of it that it almost hurts the eyes and overwhelms Nicole.

White. Classic and simple and extremely useful for commerciial work, where you can add type or other objects.

Gray. Also neutral, but lets the subject come forward a bit more.

Black is neutral and dramatic, but pretty severe. If you are going to use a black background you need to use some backlighting to separate dark hair and clothes from the background — which we did not do in this test.

The solid blue makes me notice the red lips more. Pretty strong blue, almost painful.

Green background plus red lips. Christmas?

Plum? Mauve? Whatever, this background works pretty well to enhance the life of the photo without overwhelming Nicole.

RED!!! Once again red is such a powerful, active color. The photo as a whole is the strongest, but not the best portrait since the red screams pretty loud.