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Managing a large number of seamless backgrounds can be unwieldy. To simplify my life and storage requirements, I keep two seamless paper rolls mounted at all times - black and white. But throw in a strobe and a set of gels, and you can turn that black background into an array of wonderfully rich, saturated colors.

For example, consider this portrait from last night’s session:

Here we have a model with rich brown hair, amazing highlights and a lime green shirt. I wanted to match my background to her clothing and bring out the contrast of her face and eyes to really make the portrait pop. As already mentioned, I only keep a black and white seamless background handy. So where did the lime green background come from?

Achieving this effect is rather simple, but counter intuitive. A Canon 580EX II is sitting behind her, to her right, gelled with a Rosco Roscolux Straw, 20" x 24" Color Effects Lighting Filter and Rosco Roscolux No Color Blue, 20" x 24" Color Effects Lighting Filter. Combined they yield the green you see here. Lighting up a black background results in deeply saturated color and enables you to combine colors from a sample pack of Roscolux gels to achieve a very wide variety of background colors.

Further effect is added by zooming the flash head to 50mm to achieve the background highlight and natural vignette that further draws your attention to the subject. It is similar to using specular reflections as a background element, but in this case we are lighting the entire background separately from the main subject.

Not only is this technique simple and cost effective, it also resulted in this picture being showcased on flickr’s Explore. So the next time you’re looking to add a little punch to your portrait, first consider black and then reach for the Roscolux gels!

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