Happy Monday morning! We had a quiet grey restful weekend, playing scrabble, baking bread and trying to recover from some snottiness all round.Hopefully you’ve been testing some of my photography tips and been wondering what my second whiter whites tip could be...
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ WHITER WHITES #2 When you start off with the right white light and all your electric lights have been switched off, but something still smells or looks off ;) - it might be colour contamination. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Think of your white reflector that adds extra white light into your image - if that reflector was a different colour that colour would be reflected into your photo and there'd be colour contamination. ⠀⠀⠀⠀
Have a look at the demonstration below:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ So be aware what is around your photo. Are you shooting near a red wall or green grass? The problem that is often missed is the colour of wooden floors or surfaces. Have a look at the jug below that was placed next to a wooden board.
I once had a lovely little studio with beautiful oregon pine floors. I was shooting portraits and to create a more relaxed feel I asked my clients to sit on the floor together. The shoot went really well, but afterwards I realised that everybody in the photos had yellowy-orange chins. My studio lights had reflected off the floor and onto their skin. Disaster! It cost me hours of photoshop work and a lesson to never underestimate the colour of wood. (Don't go ripping up your wooden floors! Wood isn't always bad! It just depends on the colour and the direction of the light, so be aware of it.) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Now have a look at the jugs and compare them to the beautiful white garlic that was shot in the same windowsill! I'll post a behind the scenes image in the next post.
Isn't it amazing how the colour of the surroundings can leak into your photos?