Tips for making a painted backdrop

[Ed Bray]

Christopher, I may have told you before but I will say it again. Your work is without equal, it is truly phenomenal! I am a landscape guy, I have never even attempted still life, but I could look at your work all day. And the backdrops, they are a work of art on their own.

Someday I would love to hear your life story, maybe you have shared your photographic career background here before but I don't rember seeing it.

Sorry for all the gushing.

www.timeandlight.com

Seconded! I looked at Christopher's website after seeing the above quote and the images are very inspirational. Beautifully lit and with great depth. Some of the portraits are truly lovely.

I too would like to find out more about Christopher.

[Tim Meisburger]

Thanks Christopher. I'll pick up a canvas and give that a try. Frank, I am lazy, but the cost of shipping anything here doubles its price, then there is tax...

[cjbroadbent]

John and Ed, Thanks but it's just my day job and over the years I've churned out a good deal of pretty bad stuff which is not on show. These are just the ones that got away. Tim, by the way the black and white shots of the backgrounds are there to show how they change character with filters; there must be a little cool colour in the shadow part and some warm colour in the light part.

[pbryld]

Is using a bed sheet as good as using canvas (which is considerably more expensive)?

[cjbroadbent]

Is using a bed sheet as good as using canvas (which is considerably more expensive)?

The bed sheet has to be kept permanently on a stretcher which takes up a lot of space (unless you do it so well that your wife lets you hang it on the wall). Canvas backgrounds can be rolled and stored in quantity. Sandro Laferla, in New York, is the king of backdrops.

[pbryld]

The bed sheet has to be kept permanently on a stretcher which takes up a lot of space (unless you do it so well that your wife lets you hang it on the wall). Canvas backgrounds can be rolled and stored in quantity. Sandro Laferla, in New York, is the king of backdrops.

Ah, a bed sheet is fine then. If they are half as good as yours, they are simply beautiful pieces of abstract art; and my wi... parents, they would definitely let me hang it on the wall!

[Ed Bray]

John and Ed, Thanks but it's just my day job and over the years I've churned out a good deal of pretty bad stuff which is not on show. These are just the ones that got away. Tim, by the way the black and white shots of the backgrounds are there to show how they change character with filters; there must be a little cool colour in the shadow part and some warm colour in the light part.

Christopher, I have just been reading the Time Life book 'The Studio' first published in 1982 and on page 219 there is a picture of cheeses on a table and I thought, that looks very like Chris Broadbent's work as the image has lovely muted colours, beautifully lit and a lovely feel to the image, but when I looked at the credit, the image was by Francois Gillet, 1978. So what has this to do with you I hear others thinking (because I'm sure you know), the image on the previous page (218) is of a strange conglomoration of a cabbage suspended over a table with the most gaudy mainly purple tablecloth which has a glass of wine and a gold plate with an apple on it, and who was it by? The illustrious Christopher Broadbent, taken in 1980.

[alanbutler57]

Often the problem is wrinkles.
If you are going to roll it up, you'll need Rosco paint and you might as well go for Rosco canvas. No crackle, no wrinkle.

Tight budget? The double bed-sheet thing stapled to a DIY 2x4 stretcher is cheap, wrinkle-less and lasts forever.

My way, after a few years of screw-ups.
Lay a room-size plastic sheet on the floor (to keep it clean). Lay down the frame and staple the bed-sheet. Prepare two buckets of diluted white wall paint. Mix a tube of aniline black into one bucket.
Using a roller on a long handle, start with the white on the right hand bottom corner and work fast up to the centre diagonal. Dip the dirty brush into the black and work down to the middle from the top left corner. Add a few drops of aniline blue to the black bucket and a few red drops to the white bucket. Switch to a big brush on a long handle and blend with broad strokes. Somewhere in the middle you should have a medium grey.
BEFORE IT DRIES, mix some white with plenty of water in a garden plant sprayer. Spry up into the air above the sheet so that the a gentle mist falls from above and deposits onto the wet surface. This gives you a vague aerial perspective. Let it dry flat overnight.
Your light source is always from the left (that's tradition). So the illuminated side of the subject separates from the dark side of the background and the shadow side of the subject separates from the light side of the background (that's also tradition, think of how a statue in a niche works).
If you keep the right side white enough you will only ever need one light source for everything - no hair-light, no accents, no backlight, ever.
Examples here.

These are gorgeous. If the final results are to be digitized, I wonder if shifting the color palette to cyans would work the same way (thus allowing color to be shifted in post processing without affecting skin tones). Many thanks for a wonderful trade "secret".

[Kevin J. Kolosky]

You can also use a Window Shade. I have a very very fine background painted on a large windowshade by a company called the Backgrounders (now out of business I believe) easy to store and easy to use and transport. Great when you aren't going to be doing large groupls.

[zenny]

Often the problem is wrinkles.
If you are going to roll it up, you'll need Rosco paint and you might as well go for Rosco canvas. No crackle, no wrinkle.

Tight budget? The double bed-sheet thing stapled to a DIY 2x4 stretcher is cheap, wrinkle-less and lasts forever.

My way, after a few years of screw-ups.
Lay a room-size plastic sheet on the floor (to keep it clean). Lay down the frame and staple the bed-sheet. Prepare two buckets of diluted white wall paint. Mix a tube of aniline black into one bucket.
Using a roller on a long handle, start with the white on the right hand bottom corner and work fast up to the centre diagonal. Dip the dirty brush into the black and work down to the middle from the top left corner. Add a few drops of aniline blue to the black bucket and a few red drops to the white bucket. Switch to a big brush on a long handle and blend with broad strokes. Somewhere in the middle you should have a medium grey.
BEFORE IT DRIES, mix some white with plenty of water in a garden plant sprayer. Spry up into the air above the sheet so that the a gentle mist falls from above and deposits onto the wet surface. This gives you a vague aerial perspective. Let it dry flat overnight.
Your light source is always from the left (that's tradition). So the illuminated side of the subject separates from the dark side of the background and the shadow side of the subject separates from the light side of the background (that's also tradition, think of how a statue in a niche works).
If you keep the right side white enough you will only ever need one light source for everything - no hair-light, no accents, no backlight, ever.
Examples here.

Yep, thanks for useful information.

And I cherished visiting your site (http://www.christopherbroadbent.pro). Or call them "visual therapy"! :-) Some still life pictures look like paintings. How do you achieve such tonality? Just curious.

//zenny

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