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Basic Background Lighting

by David Maynard

© David Maynard

While it is great to have a variety of backgrounds at our disposal, there are times when this is just not practical. The cost of professional backgrounds and storage/transport space can be prohibitive for many photographers.


With a simple white or gray background such as a wall, muslin material, or even a simple bed sheet, one can create a wide variety of backgrounds with simple control of light.

For these examples I used a basic white Muslin background. The subject (Mr. Beethoven) is set about 11 feet from the background. The distance between the subject and the background is an important consideration because if placed too close there will be bleed over from you background light and/or color onto the subject. This of course can be a great creative effect, but for these examples we will keep the subject isolated.

Two strobes were used. The primary is placed just to my left and fired through a 2’X3’ softbox. The background light is placed directly behind and below my subject facing the background. This background light uses a 2-position 5” reflector set to wide. I first metered the light from my primary to yield f/11 at the subject. This is where it stayed for each example shot. The only changes are to the background light power.

In the first example, the background light was metered to 1/2 stop above my primary to overexpose the background. In each of the following images the power was reduced in steps until the last frame. The last example is without the background light, and produced an almost black background. Had the subject been closer to the background, some light from the primary would have lit the background.
© David Maynard

For the next examples, a honeycomb grid and a blue lighting gel are added to the background light to create color and gradient.


The power is only varied by 3 stops throughout this set starting with f/11.


Slight turning (aiming) of the background light has produced nice variations to the gradient as the changes in the power effects the blue tones.

For the last examples I replaced the blue gel with a red one, and ran back through the 3 stops and position changes.


As you can clearly see, the possibilities are almost endless. Changing the gels, size of the grid (5, 20, 40 degrees), position of the light, etc. can produce dramatic changes and effects.


You can also add a second background light using a narrow snoot to create a smaller overexposed circle with

or without color for more gradient effect. Or try using two colors of gel to shift the colors across the entire background.

With so many possibilities, we have barely scratched the surface of background lighting here. But with the few basic tools we have discussed, some imagination and experimentation, the sky is the limit. Good luck.

All images for this article were shot with the Tamron SP AF28-75 F/2.8 XR Di lens.