Working with your lights and more PtII

Ok today part II in this 2 blog post article about adding something extra to your shots.
Yesterday we saw how Maisy used a ring flash to light herself and got some interesting effects, now today I’m gonna add another element…. the background.
Now I hear you think “Duh, really… a background?”
Well not like you might thing.
Normally we would use a background as… well a background right?
Now what would happen if we start using the background as a prop?
During the SWPP we decided during the last demo that we wanted to do something nice, and of course already help with breaking down the booth….. so after the first part of the demo I asked Maisy to stand behind the background and tried to stab her with a knife…. just kidding of course, she was not behind the background, but we did use a knife. With the knife I made a cut in the background and asked Maisy to start “playing” with this.

Now I already liked this image, but I wanted more (and so did the crowd).
So I decided to add the ring flash into the picture and let Maisy play with the light herself.

During the other demos we also worked with an electric cigarette to demonstrate how to photograph smoke and finally we decided to also add this element into the shot for the following shots, which I personally love very much.

So as you can see, you don’t need a lot to create interesting images, just let your imagination run wild, and be willing to “destroy” or like we call it “modify” a background.

Good luck, and feel free to show some of your results.