Backgrounds are something very important to a portrait. Backgrounds have been used in art for a long, long time. Have you ever noticed the background on the Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci. It is the hills of Tuscany. They enhance the portrait by adding depth and color. If it would have been a plain white background would the portrait have been as famous. The background added to the portrait by providing a setting of a young girl in a place of beauty, grace, and simplicity. If Mona would have been in front of a market scene in Florence the portrait might have lost some of its interest on the character of Mona. The focus could have been transferred to the background scene.
A background is a complement to the portrait and generally, not a distraction. A solid white or other color as a background may provide a mood to the portrait, but not much else. If one wants the subject to stand out from the background then the best choice may be black. A black background places the subject alone and the person stands out. The expression will say the most if the subject is also wearing black clothes.
At my studio we have what is called a scene machine. This machine is made by the Virtual Backgrounds company in San Marcos, Texas. The owner is Dr. Henry Oles and he helped develop this machine to provide a virtually unlimited amount of backgrounds using slides that are projected onto a highly reflective background. Dr. Oles has a very good book on backgrounds, called, “Background Power.” The background is more reflective than the human skin or clothing; therefore, the slide that is projected does not show except on the reflective screen. This makes it possible to place the subject in a wide variety of locations that the slide represents. For instance, you can have a person wearing a ski sweater with goggles and place them on a slope of Mount Everest for the scene which is actually being photographed in the desert studio of West Texas. Fall photographs are a year round possibility with the scene machine.
The photograph looks more realistic with foreground props that complement the scene. The potential is really unlimited. These scene machines are used by some of the best photographers in the world, such as; The Simones of Montreal, Canada and the website at http://www.simoneportrait.com/. Louise Simone paints backgrounds that are then turned into slides and used as virtual backgrounds for their subjects. The portraits are lit the same way as a traditional photography studio by using flash strobes. The most important thing is not to project the lights onto the background material so that they will be reflected and captured by the camera.
Another very good photographer using the scene machine is Trevon Baker. His photographs use the backgrounds to add emotion to the portraits he creates.
I hope to be creating some unique images in the future with my scene machine. I have been limited by space up until now by having a small studio in my house. In the near future I will have a larger studio to compose beautiful images. Stop back by and check out images here or on my website.
Thanks for listening,
Michael
Michael Leyba
Portraits by Michael
http://www.michaelleyba.com
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