Three looks - Two backgrounds - One setup

Sometimes you've got plenty of setup time, but not so much time for shooting. Perhaps, for example, the model is only available for a certain time, and a significant period of that time is taken up by complicated makeup/hair work, or you have a lot of clothing changes to get through, but want a variety of looks for each.

In this particular case, makeup/hair (wig) was pretty long for this shoot, and there were a couple of clothing styles to get through in limited time. So to make sure I could get a variety of looks, I used two half width background rolls slid onto the one full width background support. This meant that I had, in this case, a black and white roll side by side.



So, just by quickly moving lights about, I was able to go from one background to another with little time taken up. And yes, my black roll got some pretty rough treatment getting pulled out...don't ask! Of course, it didn't matter too much. You can see that the black roll is actually used for a blue background.



So by alternating between the white background, black background for a blue gelled look, and shooting across the rolls out into the blackness of the rest of the building, I was able to quickly get three distinct looks.







The only thing I'd say about this method is it puts a fair strain on the background support. Normally a full width roll has its own stiffness, so doesn't want to bend the background support. As you can see though, the two rolls tend to want to put a lot of pressure on the centre of the support bar, because they're split in the middle. Didn't do any long term harm though!