I’m frequently asked - by frustrated shooters - what materials they should be using to get a crisp, sparkling, pure white photography background.

Unfortunately, that is the incorrect question to raise! It in reality, is not the background material that gives you the clean white you might be looking for.

It is actually the source of the light!

Here’s the situation…you put up a dirt free white bed sheet or a roll of white paper - and you situate your subject matter in front of it.

You set up a light source or two and light your subject matter. All is looking excellent. You think you have a satisfactorily lit subject matter and a pleasant white backdrop.

Now, you take the photograph.

Anxiously, you run to the photo lab if you are shooting film or to a computer if you are shooting digital. You take a look at the finished photograph and ta daaa!

Your subject matter is flawlessly lit, but the background is a dingy gray color. Not the sterile, pure white you saw inside the viewfinder!

Seem familiar? If you’ve been having a hard time getting high key photographs…And you’ve been creating that dingy gray color (regardless of the materials you utilize) here is how to mend the problem!

All light has a certain fall off factor.

By that I mean that the further away light is from a subject matter, the less bright it is. Therefore, that means… when you’ve got a certain quantity of light hitting your subject matter, and you are using that SAME illumination to light your backdrop, your light is further away from your backdrop than from your subject matter. So, it will be slightly less bright by the time it gets to your background substance.

Wow! That is a mouthful. In other words…

The reason you’re getting that gray color is because there is more light hitting your subject matter than is hitting the photography background.

To get your background be a genuine, picture perfect white…merely hit it with MORE illumination than you’re using on your subject matter!

Seems obvious after you comprehend it, but this can be a major sticking point for a lot of shooters.

The total amount of “over-exposure” that’s needed on the background depends on the color of the background substance. If it is already white, you could probably get by with using enough additional illumination to get an over-exposure around half an f-stop. Perhaps even one full f-stop.

If the fabric you’re beginning with is gray…that’s okay too! Simply hit it with in the region of 2