Pixiq

I just got a catalog from a major art and crafts show and as I went through it I realized just how many artists still use bad backgrounds for their jury submissions and ads. By that I mean those photos where a lovely earth tone scarf is buried in autumn leaves or a pearl necklace sits on a half shell on a beach. These are all visual clichés and demean the work. Worst yet they distract the viewer from the work. Some advertising actually tries to do that, like the jeans fashion shot with an extraordinarily beautiful model lit so you see her face and the jeans while the jeans are in the dark.

You cannot do that with craft and artwork, the work is the point of the photo. Carefully selecting a background helps do this because it defines the space around the work and supports the subject. It is the bones of the image, but it does not call attention to itself.

Solid backgrounds, be they black, white or a color don’t always work well and here’s why. . Dark objects on a white space are perceived to sink into the space, receding from the viewer. White around the piece is often bright that it creates glare. Black is just as bad. When I see an object on black, I don’t feel comfortable with it. Bright objects, bright colors, pop out of black backgrounds and that can be very dramatic. But a black background can’t make an object ‘dramatic’ by itself and if you put a shiny surfaced object on black., you lose the edges of the object.

I hate solid grays too, they are vampire colors which sucks the color and life out of anything. Never use them unless you are surrounded by evil blood suckers demanding you do it.

Also, solid colored backgrounds are to my mind dangerous territory because color carries emotional baggage. Every color has some sort of feeling attached to it, bright colors are seen as  ‘happy’ while de-saturated colors are ‘solemn’ or ‘earthy’. Colored backgrounds can also be a problem because one color may work with one object but not with others. Putting together a a portfolio or a jury submission entry with every object photographed against a different color background diminishes the impact of the presentation.  Thats why I am a graduated background fan.

Whether called “graduated” or “gradient” these backgrounds are black on the top and through a continuous range of grays becomes white at the bottom. I’ve used these backgrounds for a long time and thought a lot about why they work so well. I think that they are effective because of the way visual perception works, that is the way we see. Vision is composed of two parts,  the sensory component of the way light reaches our eyes and is transmitted to the brain and the other is the way our brains interpret this information.

The best example of this is that the lenses in our eyes throw an upside down image on the retina that is turned right side up by the brain. The brain takes information from the eye and does all sorts of marvelous things. It not only turns the image right side up, it color corrects them and adds three dimensionality.

Then there’s something else that happens which I think is the most important aspect of the graduated background, it works with any color including the difficult ones like silver and gold and black. It you are a jeweler and you work in silver and gold the graduated background is the best if not the only way to create a uniform body of images with works of different color and design.

You can get graduated background in many sizes, from about five feet wide to ones that are only a foot wide. They range in cost from about $15 to $100 and must be handled very, very carefully. The backgrounds are easily scratched, so even putting work onto the background handle it with care.

To use a graduated background you hang it from a wall or other support with a gentle curve where the wall and tabletop meet.  I like to hang the background just high enough to not be visible in the frame, keeping the dark top as dark as possible. Next I tack the corners then to the table top. With a big background on a support I usually use metal clips along the bottom ofthe background to pull it straight down.

Depending upon the angle you are shooting at, place the subject as near to the front of the background as you can, remembering to keep the front edge of the background out of the frame.  

Looking at the photos in the gallery, you can you see how the graduated background supports and focuses the viewer’s attention on the pieces and the models. You don’t get that with a solid color or with white, grey or black backgrounds. That’s the power of graduated backgrounds, they produce a spotlight effect that says to the viewer, “Ta-da, here take a good look at this!"

photos and text © 2011 Steve Meltzer