I see a lot used in portraits and still lifes, and have seen reference to how easy they are to make with a bed sheet and a can of paint. I'm a fair mechanic, but I'm not really artistic. Can anyone describe how to do this in simple terms? I, and I am sure other, would appreciate it.
Tim
Don't use a bed sheet.
Buy a white muslin 10x20 for about $30 or 40 from Amazon.
You can dye it with Rit dye, for about $6 bucks. Just boil it in a big pot with a cup of salt until the dye is all absorbed. Or tie dye it in a bucket. Or paint it if you like, it gets hard if you do that.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss...in%2Caps%2C512
I read in an old shutterbug it was best to use a seamless painters canvas drop cloth and RIT fabric dyes. IIRC Francis Schulz wrote the article.
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
CJBroadbent posted some time back on how he makes his backdrops.
While he uses them in the many still life shots he shares on this forum, I think they would work well for portraits also.
I never thought of using Rit dye.....
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.
Thanks Christopher. I don't quite understand how the process you describe yields the backdrops you have, but I guess the best thing to do is just give it a try, and after that I will at least have more informed questions. I assume you are able to stretch the sheet tight enough that you do not need any support under it when you roll the paint on it?
The sheet sags onto the plastic floor covering while you paint. It dries drum-tight. Try a small artists canvas as a start, to get the hang of raining the mist down onto the wet paint.Originally Posted by Tim Meisburger
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
I did them with large sponges and grey floor paint back in the day but the CJ Broadbent method is "the way".
Not to discourage you from DIY but if you are lazy you can get a Westcott collapsible like this:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...ackground.html
As long your subject is not too close and you can get it to fall off out of focus, it looks like a traditional background. It's a bit small and doesn't have the side to side gradation that CJB does. But it works for torsos in office buildings when you need a background. This collapses into a 30" disc, easy to move around and set up, here is an outake with the curved edge on the floor:
But here I am going off-topic... rather, here is some inspiration: http://www.oliphantstudio.com/ you can rent whatever you like.
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