senior portrait background question

[Skyeg]

a girl asked me to do her senior portrait. iv dont lots of senior portraits with lots of differnt backgrounds, but iv never done a black background. this girl is very much into doing her own thing and wants some stuff people dont usualy have in a senior portrait like severly blown out highlights, extremly high contrast, and maybe do some cross processed stuff.

my question is when doing a black back ground should i just use a peice of black cloth with no lights on it? or should i still have lights on it and have it more of a really dark grey so its not just like total blackness? should it have some texture to it?

thanks
-skye

 

[wxnut]

I shoot lots of black background. Dont worry about the lights on it. If you have photoshop, it is very easy to BLACKEN the backdrop with the burn tool selected on shadows. As long as the subject isnt wearing black, and is well lit up.

This picture shows the type of backdrop I am using. Just a black sheet like material. The

another shot with this backdrop...

Doug Raflik
[email protected]
http://www.wxnut.net

 

[Skyeg]

thanks wxnut

i should have mentioned, she has black hair, and will be wearing black, what should i do in that situation?

 

[wxnut]

Then you may want to just leave the backdrop as is. This is what mine looks like in this situation. I dont think there is anything wrong with a couple shades of black in a picture.