I want to do white background portraits and found a excellent tutorial by Photographer Zack Arias HERE out of Atlanta, GA. Thanks for all the info Zack. This is my attempt to create a similar but smaller scale version of his setup.

The setup includes two incandescent shop lights behind foam boards (used to block their light from the object being photographed) and a homemade beauty dish with SB800 fired by poverty wizards.   Because I’m using incandescent lights, the cameras White balance is set to incandescent and a Color Temperature Orange (CTO) gel added to the SB800 to be sure and get a nice white color overall.   The shop lights are aimed at the back foam board and the Object being photographed sits on yet another foam board.  It is placed just in front of the shadow created by the side boards to allow for different exposure setting from the back board.  That’s what makes it all work – the object is way less exposed (although properly) than the back and bottom board who are being hit with all that extra light.

One day, I’ll scale up for portraits but for now I’m gonna use this setup to explore the details and options. I think what I learn will scale right along with the lights setup. Of course, I’ll have to figure out how to scale up the room I shoot in too!

These are some of the photos that I’ve made using the setup above.