Shopping Categories
Stay in touch! Get photography tips, updates, and special offers...
Not Your Normal Photography®
Black Backdrop
I’ve always loved the look of a black backdrop with its luxurious, dramatic appearance. My old black backdrop was great, but it was only 6 feet wide and 9 feet long, which limited the space available for posing. At this point, it’s really worn out and new ones of that type are unavailable.
So I went on a quest for a new black backdrop. But didn’t find one to my liking — either the material wasn’t as black as I wanted or the size wasn’t large enough.
After receiving a swatch of material that I thought would be useful for a black backdrop — it was very black, soft, plush and had a luxurious look and feel — I looked into having a backdrop custom-made to my specifications.
Since the material is washable, it made sense to have a 2-piece system that consisted of...
That way, if it needs washing, in most cases, you’ll only have to wash the small piece where most of the traffic occurs. You can easily spot clean the larger piece if needed.a large piece to cover the wall and part of the floor area
~ and ~a shorter piece that could be securely attached and removed easily
The main backdrop in this system measures 8 feet wide and 12 feet long. The attachable extension is 8x6 feet which gives you a total length of 18 feet.
When I first received the prototype and started testing it, the potential was obvious, but I immediately knew some “adjustments” were needed.The prototype came with tabs located on the sides at the end of the large backdrop piece. The purpose of the tabs is to tape down the backdrop and hold it securely. The tabs worked fine, but some extra tabs were needed along the end edge to make it even more secure. So I’ve had two additional tabs added to the “production” model.
The next obstacle to overcome was stabilizing the additional 8x6 foot extension piece. This piece has 4 tabs along the side — one on each corner — however, the piece wouldn’t lay secure enough to prevent bunching up where the two pieces met in the middle.
So, I attached 6 Velcoins (circle shaped Velcro pieces) along the edges of the backdrop pieces, spacing them about 16-inches apart. This worked very well, and Velcoins are included with the backdrop system (I’ve included 8 in case you want to space them closer).
Once the Velcoins were in place, it was quick and easy to attach and remove the extra piece!
Clips
Coming straight out of the bag, the backdrop looked a little wavy and wrinkly (but it felt luscious!), so I decided that some type of clip would be nice to help pull it a little tighter (not too tight, the material is stretchy!) and smoother.
Jeff and I came up with a nifty clip that’s long enough to use with just about any size backdrop support you have...
At first I used 3 clips on each side of the backdrop (top, middle, bottom). But once it hung for a while, I found I only needed 2 on each side to hold it nicely in place.
The clips are also useful for a variety of tasks from keeping rolls of paper from unraveling...
to hanging up welcome signs...
You can check out the clips at the NYN photo store — we use a lot of them around here!
Pillow Cases
In addition to the items already mentioned, I thought it would be nice to have “pillowcases” made from the same material as the backdrop. These could be used in various ways.
For instance, a baby could lean on them when they’re still a little wobbly and can’t hold their head up yet.
Since I didn’t have a baby handy to photograph for test shots, I used Mickey Mouse as a stand-in (he also has a little more patience for test shots!).
You could also make a small “bed” out of the the pillows. I used a sturdy foam pillow for the “mattress” section and a thin feather pillow for the head pillow which I doubled over and tucked in the ends.
You could substitute other items such as blankets, towels, etc. to stuff the pillow cases or wrap them around something, but you get the idea.
The pillow cases, by the way, are 18 inches wide x 24 inches long and will fit any standard size pillow. There are two included with each backdrop.
Note that the backdrop material is very “animal friendly.” This beagle/basset hound absolutely loved lying on the pillows! I had to force him to get off when I was done!!
Special note — even though the pillow cases are made from the same material as the backdrop, they don’t completely fade into the background because the light will accentuate the dips, valleys, shadows and edges. This adds interest and depth to the photo. You’ll be able to observe this better and more accurately in the online version of this newsletter (I manually lightened up the photos to help show the effect here).The pillow cases are also useful when they aren’t stuffed with anything. You could drape them over the head of a baby or pet while having their face peeking out from underneath. You could even use them as a “wrap” or “shawl” for head shots. Just use safety pins to pin the two cases together...
Light weight and packable...
Everything I’ve discussed so far, the 8 x 12 and 8 x 6 backdrop pieces and the two pillow cases, weighs in at only 8 pounds!
The 8 x 12 by itself is less than 5 pounds and all are soft and crushable fitting nicely into the included heavy nylon drawn-string bag for extreme portability and storage.
Photo Results!
Once I got my technique down, I had great results with this backdrop (like most things photographic, there are a few “tricks” you need to know about which we’ll discuss in a moment).
Where this backdrop really shines is when it’s used for head shots...
As you can see the background surrounds the subject with a beautiful smooth blackness popping the subject(s) immensely. These look absolutely beautiful and dramatic!
And, with the black background, black and white photos look great too!...
Full length shots
Full length shots can be a little trickier because it’s easy to have the light spill onto the floor of the backdrop. This lightens it up considerably which may require some minor work (darkening) in Photoshop to compensate.
But here’s all you have to do to avoid most, if not all, of the unwanted stray light...
Either have your subjects as close to your main light as possible where you can still get them full length in the frame, or if they are closer to the back of the backdrop, show as little as possible of the floor in front of the subject when composing the photo. Then, if any touch up is required it’s at a minimum.
Here are a couple of full length shots taken with the Not Your Normal Photography® Black Backdrop...
“Bunching” of Material
All fabric-based backdrops have a tendency to “bunch up” against the subject when they move on the backdrop — especially if your floor is slick such as wood, tile, linoleum, etc..
The clips, tabs, and Velcoins on this backdrop will reduce this greatly, but you’ll still need to keep an eye on this problem.
Carpet helps, again
As with the Superlite®, slipping a piece of carpeting made from a short, dense, smooth pile underneath the backdrop will help with this problem considerably.
Note that the removable Painter’s tape used to tape down the backdrop holds quite well on top of carpet. This is also good news for those location shots where the client might have carpeting.
Fixing “Bunching” in Photoshop if necessary
If the material that is bunching up isn’t directly against the subject, it’s extremely quick and easy to smooth out in Photoshop. I usually use the Clone Stamp Tool or the Healing Brush Tool.
If the bunching material is actually touching the subject, you’ll have to decide whether you can fix it or at least make it look more acceptable. If it’s really bad, you may have to crop the photo to get rid of it all together.
Here’s a simple example showing the problem and how I fixed it...
In this photo, you can see a little bit of the material pushed up by the dog’s right paw.
This example was very easy to fix in Photoshop using the Clone Stamp Tool. Sampling just above the material, I redrew the paw until it looked satisfactory. I even timed the process and it took me less than 30 seconds to fix.
Or, you can just draw attention away from it with some directional lighting in Photoshop! (Filter>Render>Lighting Effects)...
What you really need to watch out for is when the material covers hard to fix areas such as a person’s hand or foot. Prevention is always best, so try to keep the material as smooth as possible during the session.
Lint, Hair, and other Particles!
Because of the dark color, no matter what material you use for your black backdrop, you’re going to have to deal with spots from lint, hair, dust and other debris. Fortunately, the material used for the Not Your Normal Photography® black backdrop is very easy to clean.
The “Crud Remover” is available at the NYN Photo Store and this is an exceptional tool for cleaning dust, lint and hair. It is very easy to use, and the extension handle allows easy cleaning without having to get down on your hands and knees!
I’ve even used it to remove dust (we have a lot of that here on the Farrm!) on the part of the backdrop hanging from the background support. But do roll very lightly on this section — you don’t want to topple over the backdrop!
Note that you’ll need to peel the layers off the pickup roller frequently, especially when photographing pets! A fresh strip also fluffs up the material making it look smooth and even. Very nice! Large capacity refills are available at the NYN Photo Store.
As an alternative, you can use painter’s tape to pick up debris on your backdrop. Painter’s tape works well, but it’s much more “labor intensive” and slower than using the Large Surface Adhesive Roller.
Going Wireless
If you’re using one monolight with the black backdrop and you have a wireless unit that is infra-red driven, you may find that it doesn’t work in certain conditions.
For instance, in my case, because I’m shooting through a doorway outside of the studio room my infra-red beam couldn’t locate the sensor on the flash unit (this isn’t a problem with the white background setup because the background lights are in view of the beam).
So, with this particular black background set up, I had to revert back to using a sync cord. At least for the short term — I’ll be ordering a radio transmitter flash trigger from the NYN Photo Store. It has the ability to penetrate through walls!
Conclusion
My quest for a good black backdrop has finally arrived! I’ve missed not taking more photos with a black background because of the limitations with my previous one. Now, there’s plenty of room for families as well as all the other people and pet photos I enjoy.
The Not Your Normal Photography® black backdrop is available at the NYN Photo Store on a first come first served basis (quantities are limited, remember this is a custom-made item!).