How to Turn a White Wall Into a Black Background

When you are new to lighting, you might think you need a black background to take photos with, well, a black background, but you might be surprised to know that with some careful technique, you can make even a white wall into a black background. This great video video will give you a very practical lesson in lighting to show you how it affects the look of your background.

Coming to you from Mark Wallace with Adorama TV, this great video will show you how you can use a practical knowledge of lighting to turn a white wall into a black background, a technique that will come in handy over and over again if you plan on shooting portraits during your career. The reason this is such a useful lesson is because it teaches you how to control the spill of light. You are not changing the color of the background, but rather, you are ensuring that its exposure is so much less than that of your subject that it appears black. This is accomplished by careful positioning of your light source(s) to ensure that almost no light falls on the background. It is a very useful technique that is well worth learning; check out the video above for the full rundown.

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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4 Comments

Nice video to help you understand that not putting light on something makes it look black...
Next one: "how to not get wet under the rain by not going under the rain..."

I distinctly remember a simply lesson like this opened my eyes early in my career.

I would sometimes accompany our sales team on customer visits to photograph our products in use. Inexperience, massive time restraints, and busy, poorly/over lit environments yielded terrible results.

Learning that I could effectively remove unwanted background confusion, and highlight the subject with a fast/simple lighting setup was a major breakthrough for me.

A simple lesson? Absolutely. As simple a lesson as remaining dry when raining by not going into the rain? Yes.

But we all had to get wet once to learn how to remain dry.

Thank you captain obvious.

Beyond photography did a tutorial on this about two years ago, using a speedlight and a reverse umbrella. So if you are just starting out and can't afford the lighting equipment shown in the above video, here is a link:

https://youtu.be/k3F-6gH3raE