How to do Black Background Photography

Black Background Photos in a Barn

• Use camera’s limited dynamic range
• Stand horse in doorway
• Close all other doors and windows
• Turn off all inside barn lights
• Expose so that the horse standing in the light is exposed properly or even a little underexposed.
• This will make the background black or really close
• In post, take care of any stray light or other things visible in the background.
• You are ready to go

Black Background Photos with Strobes

• Don’t have a barn?
• Strobes allow you to have perfect light anywhere.
• You can shoot all night.
• If you have a powerful enough strobe you can even do BBG pics during the day outside
• Here’s how you do it

1. Setup your camera so that you get an images that is 4 or more stops under exposed before you turn on the strobe
2. Turn on the strobe and properly expose your subject
3. Ensure the background is far away or shoot outside without a background
4. The light will naturally fall off to total darkness

• As before, clean up any weird things in post
• You are all set

Listen to the Podcast Episode here:

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[Eventually, we will make this a stand-alone course. But for now, check out www.equinephotoschool.com to see how we make black background pics easy in the Mastering Horse Portraits Course

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