Technical Tuesday - Open Shade White Seamless

I'm starting a new section of the blog, I'm calling it technical Tuesday.  I'm doing it for a couple of reasons.

1. I don't feel like I've been divulging enough technical information.
2. I think you guys want more techniques than family photos.
3. It makes it a whole lot easier to have set days where I know exactly what I'm going to blog about.

For my first Technical Tuesday post, I'm going to discuss shooting on a white background in open shade. I like to share ideas that don't take a whole lot of technical knowledge and can be done with minimal equipment.  This is definitely one of those ideas.

The first thing you need to do is acquire a seamless white backdrop or a large piece of white poster board. You will take that seamless/poster board and tape it to a wall on a porch or a wall in open shade.  Open shade is defined as an area that is shaded on a sunny day.  Essentially it removes all shadows from your subject.

Here's a tip for anyone using the "in camera" light meter.  When shooting in manual mode (always recommended) get in close on the white poster board, take your meter reading, and overexpose by one full f/stop.  The reason being, in-camera meters work off of 18% gray.  What that means is the camera always wants to make whites gray.  The same applies to snow.  Ever taken photos of snow and they don't look quite as white as you remember it was?  That's why.

Here's a photo showing the set up from the shoot.

See how simple it is?  So here are some of the photos from this little session with my kids.  The thing that a plain white background allows you to do is completely focus on the emotion and angle of your camera.  Find moments, find perspective, find something to say.

Give it a shot.  Literally.  Let me know if this was beneficial to your photography and please share your photos and your attempts with me.  I'll be glad to answer any technical questions about this post.  And in the mean time check out where I got the idea from, photographer Clay Enos:

Notice how beautiful the catch lights in the eyes are here, Clay is a master.  Enjoy.