Creating more than just a background light

We all love to place our model against a beautiful backdrop.
Personally I love the walls we have in our studio or the amazing new Lastolite panoramic backdrops.
But how do you light this?
Do you just throw some light on it…… or do you go one step further.

During the workshop classical lighting I always work with flags.
Flags are used to prevent lensflare but can also be used to shape the light.
In the shots in this blogpost I used them to draw a bit more attention to the eyes of our model Esther. By moving one of the flags further away towards the lightsource you can actually control the “harshness” of the transition between shadow and light, it’s an incredibly powerful technique.

However by placing them correctly in the light path of the strobe and backdrop you can also create some cool background effects as you can see in this blogpost. So the tip for today…..

Use flags to block light, but use them smart and you can create some really cool background lighting effects.
I would love to see your results…
What did you do with flags?